Fruits of War
by kingoffire1
Summary: When Kaguya ate the fruit from the Shinju she gained a different kind of power. Now ninja fight with the powers of the Devil instead of chakra and all it takes to be strong is one lucky meal. (Dead)
1. Chapter 1

**Fruits of War**

 **Chapter 1: Fruit-y Ninja**

 **A/N: My new summer project. Basic premise; Devil Fruit have replaced Chakra. Let's have some fun with this.**

"Talking"

'Thinking'

Devil Fruit

 **Location/Time Change**

Long before the Elemental Nations were formed, ninja clans and samurai fought amongst each other for control of the island country. Alliances were formed and broken with the changing of the seasons and the friend that you laughed with last week over a fire could be the man your sword was running through that week. Lords ruled over their own territory carved out with blood and steel. The only thing that could be trusted was family and your own skill with weapons and fists. This was how the country existed - until the day that SHE changed the rules.

A woman from parts unknown and affiliations nonexistent appeared with the power of the gods. She soon gained control over the land and one by one, armies fell to her might, unable to so much as scratch her form. Only once she had united the land under one banner and one god, herself, did she reveal the source of her power to her most loyal followers. A divine tree found deep in a forest that would give one fantastic power if they ate just one of their fruit. These holy fruits were what gave the woman her power and she allowed her most loyal followers to pick a fruit and rule over a portion of her land with it.

But the woman didn't account for the greed and ambition of her followers. For now that they knew the source of her power they knew her to be mortal. The fruit eaters gathered up their most loyal followers and snuck out to the divine tree and ate several of the fruits. The age of peace was over and now the wars started again, but this time the soldiers wielded strange and inhuman powers against the masses that could do little to counter their new abilities.

Appalled at what her gifts had wrought, the woman took her two young sons away and hid within the trunk of the divine tree—now with bare branches. There she raised her sons in secret and taught them the way of the sages. Once they had become of age, the woman took her two sons back into the world with the intent of retrieving all of the fruits. It was only then that they learned the horrible truth.

The fruit were not a divine gift form the gods to show favor on man, but a trick from the Devil himself. Greed and envy over the power of the fruits lead to the wars becoming bloody and brutal. Brother would turn on brother, sister would kill mother, friends would get close so they could stab each other in the back over even the most ridiculous and odd fruit ability. Those that were too greedy suffered when they tried to consume a second fruit and were destroyed from the inside. Those that tried to escape the continent to live elsewhere soon discovered that they had been robbed of the ability to swim in the salt water that surrounded them all. Now the continent was even worse off than before, with the fruit eaters wreaking havoc across the land.

Taking responsibility for her mistakes, the woman traveled across the land to bring them under heel again with the help of her sons. The two boys hadn't eaten one of the now called "Devil Fruits" yet were still able to hold their own against the fruit eaters. They brought hope to the fruitless and began to spread their wisdom and power to the downtrodden. Alas, it was the same mistake that their mother had made. Now able to fight back against the fruit eaters, war was revolutionized again. Fruit eaters lost power and the old ninja ways resurfaced. The woman and her sons split and continued to travel the lands and try to fix their ways, hoping that their dream of peace could be made reality in a world in love with war.

Eventually, the mother and her sons died without achieving their dreams. The ninja clans constant fighting continued for many years, until one man decided to change it. A boy from one ninja clan met another boy from his rival clan unknowingly. The two became fast friends without ever learning the other's secret. They two grew up to become the leader of their clans and strong devil fruit users. The two young men then decided that they no longer wanted to follow the nomadic and short lives of ninja clans and came together to form the first hidden ninja village, Konoha.

They gathered other powerful clans with their own brand of fighting and Devil Fruits and soon other clans noticed their growing power and emulated them. Kiri, Suna, Kumo, and Iwa became the other four of the Five Great Ninja Villages. Soon the villages set up a government and country to hold their lands and deal with the more mundane tasks of leading. The ninja villages were now well known and made of several powerful clans.

To prevent fighting, a summit was called where the village leaders met and discussed terms. The leaders became the Five Kage and they ruled their lands and prevented war thanks to the power of their Devil Fruits.

The logia fruit allowed the user to become one with an element and protected the eater from nearly all harm. With this in mind, the villages kept each other in check through their logia fruits. The other fruit types played roles as well, but not as important ones as the logia fruits. The strength of a village eventually became based on which Devil Fruits they possessed and many conflicts and sabotage were enacted to gain the upper hand. Two more ninja wars followed the one that had been ended by the formation of the villages. Devil Fruits exchanged hands and weaknesses and strengths were exploited and learned about most prominent Devil Fruits.

Now the Elemental Nations knew peace, but tensions still ran high underneath the surface and the world of ninja is a very deceiving and dangerous place.

 **Konoha**

An orange and blue clad figure leapt from rooftop to rooftop at high speeds in the early morning as silently as possible. He desperately darted behind anything that could give him cover and kept fearfully glancing over his shoulder to see if he was still being followed.

"NA-RU-TO!"

He was.

Glancing around, Naruto spotted someone he recognized and threw a smoke bomb down to cover his tracks. He quickly scrambled down from the roof and landed in front of a dark-haired boy with matching eyes and pale skin. "Sasuke, you've got to help me, dattebayo," Naruto said while grabbing his friend's shirt and dragging him into a nearby alley.

Sasuke pulled Naruto's hands off of his shirt and gave him an appraising look. Unlike himself—who was dressed in a blue shirt, white shorts, and black sandals—Naruto looked as if he had just rolled out of bed. His spiky blond hair was covered by his strange brown sleeping cap and he was only wearing a well-worn blue shirt and orange shorts with a toad pattern that Sasuke doubted Naruto would ever wear in public normally. He must have really screwed up this time. "What did you do?"

Naruto's blue eyes nervously looked over Sasuke's shoulder for any sign of his pursuer and mentally sighed in relief when he saw that she hadn't followed him into the alley. "I was supposed to practice examining objects for importance and then putting everything I touched back into place just as I found it, so I put a bunch of black hair dye into our shampoo bottle last night, but Dad got called into the office early this morning and Mom was the first to shower so…" Naruto nervously stopped rambling and squeaked when he saw a chain spike into the building above him.

"Naruto, come out her so I can give you a piece of my mind, dattebane!" his mother shouted while standing on the roof where his smoke bomb had gone off.

Naruto winced, making the three thin, symmetrical scars on his cheeks stretch. Man, her verbal tic was coming out. He was so screwed. He turned back to his best friend, "What do I do? I've been trying to shake her all morning and she's just gotten closer. The caltrops I dropped earlier did nothing and I just used my last smoke bomb, dattebayo." Sasuke was smart. He was considered the genius of their generation. He should have some idea of what to do.

Sasuke was weighing his options. On one hand, Naruto was his best friend and he should try to help him in this precarious situation. On the other hand, his mother's verbal tic was showing and he didn't want to get between Kushina and Naruto after the latter messed with her hair. The last time someone had done that, the ANBU had to be called in to restrain Kushina. Sasuke put his hand on Naruto's shoulder before imparting his genius idea, "I suggest running to your dad. He'll probably know how to calm her down."

"I was hoping that you'd go grab Itachi and he'd hide me with his illusions."

"He's on a mission, and what about yours?"

Naruto shrugged, "It takes too much time to set them up and too much energy to maintain them on the run. I need to conserve as much as energy I can." A spiked chain tip impaled itself in the front of the alley, making Naruto yip in fear. "GottagoSasukebye!" he rushed out in an unintelligible mess before sprinting out the back of the alley.

The sound of someone landing made Sasuke turn around and get a good look at Naruto's pursuer. He had seen Kushina plenty of times around the village and at both his and Naruto's houses, but this was certainly a new image of her. Even in her mid-thirties she still had the appearance of a young, beautiful woman with a slender figure. Something that was readily apparent with her current attire. Apparently she had discovered Naruto's prank right after exiting the shower as the only things covering her pale skin were some water droplets and a dark towel that was held up with thin chains at the shoulders and another chain as a belt around her waist. Her long and normally red hair was dyed a pitch black that matched Sasuke's own. The preteen gulped audibly when her violet eyes locked onto his black ones.

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun," Kushina said in a normal and calm tone that sharply contrasted with her earlier rage filled shouts, "Did you happen to see Naruto around here recently?"

Now, originally Sasuke had planned on doing his friend a solid and pointing Kushina in the wrong direction or stalling, but being this close to her and feeling the killing intent she was emitting scrapped that idea in a hurry. Naruto was a big boy, he just had to accept his punishment like a man. "Down the alley and take a right. He's probably heading for the Hokage Tower."

"Thank you, Sasuke-kun. Tell Mikoto I said "hi"."

"Yes, Kushina-san," Sasuke dutifully replied. He then silently watched as Kushina burst out of the back of the alley and gave a cry of triumph at locating her prey that was followed by a distant cry of fear from said prey. Chains shot out of her hands and she pulled on them to launch herself across the village. Sasuke shook his head and exited the alley from the other side before heading back to what he had been doing. He was going to pull off that fireball shuriken move today, he could feel it.

 **Hokage Tower**

A man with spiky blond hair that had two sideburns framing his handsome face and covered his blue forehead protector, blue eyes, and slightly tan skin sat at his desk in the Hokage Tower. Behind him was a large, one-way window that allowed him a great view of the village he led. He was currently looking over the profiles for the academy students that had passed the exam to decide their three man teams. Only a third of the created teams were to actually become genin cells, with the others being made up of the children of the various non-shinobi residents of Konoha that were only completing their required education and training. Those were to be given the customary test, but then failed by the jounin giving the test to eliminate any aspirations of becoming an actual shinobi. Only the civilian children that showed promise in the classroom would be assigned to teams with other students that were pretty much guaranteed to become genin, along with the obvious stipulation that Devil Fruit eaters were to become genin regardless of their scores. Devil Fruit abilities were not to be wasted no matter how ridiculous they seemed.

A knock at the door gained his attention, "Minato-sensei, there's a police report that you should read," his secretary's voice came through his door.

"Put it in my inbox, Rin, I'll get to it when I have the time," he called back while still going through his files. He was currently on an Inuzuka boy's and was reading over which Devil Fruit he had. Even if the whole clan used only the Inu-Inu no Mi Zoan Fruits, the capabilities of each different fruit still had to be taken into consideration.

"Actually, the officer that dropped it off said that Captain Fugaku insisted that you read it right away. He's not allowed to leave until you do."

Minato put the file down and adjusted the short-sleeved white haori he wore over his standard issue green flak jacket. There was no point in making the officer stand around forever. After one of the on duty ANBU agents confirmed that it was safe, Minato indicated for him to open the door. In walked Rin, a young woman with brown eyes and equally brown hair that reached her shoulders, had purple rectangular markings on her cheeks, and was wearing a pink shirt under a maroon vest, black shorts, and black sandals. The police officer remained outside. Rin handed Minato the report and he quickly skimmed in over before doing a double-take and reading it again.

Minato's hand covered his face and he gestured behind himself with the report, "Rin, this isn't some elaborate prank my son cooked up with Obito, is it?" he asked with a slightly pleading tone.

"No. Obito is on his way back from a mission right now and your wife is chasing your son around in a bath towel all over the village right now," she pointed to the window behind him, "If you turn around you'll probably catch a glimpse of them. The officer said that they were moving across the rooftops."

Minato let out a groan rubbed at a headache he didn't have thirty seconds ago. Maybe if he didn't turn around he could pretend that he didn't know about it. Who was he kidding? The entire village knew about it at this point. Some Hokage he'd be if he just ignored every difficult problem that popped up. "Do we know why Kushina is chasing Naruto around in a towel?"

"He dyed her hair black."

Minato sat up with a start, "How black?"

"Uchiha black."

Minato winced and made a sound similar to a dying frog, "Oh, wow. Naruto really fucked up this time."

"Indeed," Rin agreed with a shudder. She knew how much pride Kushina took in her red hair and had been there for the incident when a would-be assassin had cut off a good portion of it on one side. The poor man had to go to the hospital before he could be interrogated.

Minato got out of his seat and headed over to the window. "I'd better go rescue Naruto before his mother throttles him. Send a message to Fugaku that I'm handling it," Minato ordered. He opened the window a crack and disappeared out of it in a flash of yellow light.

 **Academy Room**

A teacher wearing the standard Konoha uniform consisting of a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and matching pants, green flak jacket, and a blue forehead protector sat at his desk and cleaned out his personal things from his desk. He had brown hair that was tied back in a loose and spiky ponytail, a scar across his nose, and dark eyes. The man sighed in relief and leaned back in his chair. As much as he enjoyed teaching, it was always nice when his students had graduated and he could relax for a few weeks until the new batch arrived. All he had left to do was tell them their team designations tomorrow and he'd be done. He'd get to sleep in for a change and wouldn't have to worry about grading papers or setting up the target range for shuriken practice. He let out a chuckle as he thought back to his now former students. They were certainly an amusing bunch this year. The major clans all seemed to have had a kid enrolled at the same time, which certainly made for an interesting year. He ran a hand through his hair with a grimace. Especially the Namikaze kid. For the son of the Hokage he certainly was a wild one. Decent grades, above average skill, and the worst prankster he had ever seen.

Buckets of water over the door, caltrops on his chair, scrolls glued shut, Naruto did them all, from the classics to several rather ingenious ones that the boy came up with on his own. Iruka ended up counting them for his trapping scores and part of his stealth scores. How he kept sneaking into the academy without anyone noticing was beyond him. At least he wouldn't have to deal with Naruto's antics anymore.

Thunk! Thunk!

The teacher jerked upright in surprise and already had a set of shuriken in his off-hand at the noise. There was a pair of kunai embedded in the window of his classroom. Before he could investigate further, a blond-haired boy landed a dropkick on the weakened glass and rolled into his room.

"Naruto?" he said in surprise.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei," Naruto greeted him with a wave, "Quick question: is the supply room still stocked, dattebayo?"

Iruka answered more out of habit as a teacher than actually thinking about why Naruto was asking. If he had, then he would've been suspicious about the blonde's motive. "Yes, we always keep some supplies in stock," his brain caught up to his mouth, "Why?" he asked suspiciously.

"No time. Gotta go, thanks," Naruto hurriedly told him before dashing out the door that Iruka noticed he had been edging closer to the whole time he was talking.

Iruka was left to wonder what that was all about before another formed barreled into his room, this one with black hair and a noticeable lack of clothing. "Kushina-sama?!" he cried out in surprise at the woman's appearance and dress even as he felt his face flush crimson, "W-w-what are you doing?!"

"Oh, hello, Umino-sensei," she said as if nothing was wrong, "Did my son come through here recently, dattebane?"

Again, Iruka's mouth worked faster than his brain, "As a matter of fact, yes. He was asking about the supply room of all things—" he began only to be cut off when the woman barreled out of the room while yelling something about smoke bombs. Iruka never made out what it was, but it must have been important and she found them because soon the whole academy was filled with smoke. Iruka wisely shut the door and did his best to seal the cracks. He collapsed back into his chair. At least his window was already open.

And through that open window came a flash of light that solidified into the last member of the Namikaze family. Iruka snapped to his feet, "H-h-hokage-sama!"

The blond man scratched the back of his head and waved Iruka down, "Sorry, sorry. I'm trying to catch my wife and son and saw them come in through here. Which way did they go?"

Iruka waved his hand in the general direction of the supply room, "Down there, somewhere. I'd check the supply room, if you can get past all the smoke."

"Smoke?" Minato repeated as he opened the door. Black smoke wafted in and made his eyes water and nose sting. That was a Konoha smoke bomb alright. It was specially designed to incapacitate pursuers while covering one's trail. Minato shut the door and sheepishly looked at Iruka, "Ah, just send the bill over the supplies lost to me personally. I'll cover the costs," Minato suspected that he'd be saying that a lot today.

"And the damage costs?"

A sigh, "That too."

"Okay then," Iruka went back to organizing his personal items and waited for the Hokage to disappear in another flash of light. Once he was sure he was alone, Iruka removed the false bottom under his desk and pulled out a cup and bottle of sake. He began to pour with a sigh. So much for not needing it after Naruto graduated.

 **With Naruto**

The blond prankster sat with his knees drawn up to his chest in his hiding place and tried his hardest to make as little noise as possible. He had managed to lose his mom again after restocking from the academy and throwing one of the smoke bombs right at her face and setting off the rest that were in the supply room. He knew he was making things worse, but how much worse could things get than "messed with Mom's hair" levels of death? Now all he had to do was lay low until someone informed Dad of the situation and he managed to calm Mom down to the point that she wouldn't kill him on sight. He absently fingered the several slashes in his clothes. Kushina had almost gotten him with a couple of those chain spikes.

Around him he could hear a muffled conversation, but he had confidence that Teuchi-ojisan would pull through for him. And if not, then at least he still had a smoke bomb left. It was his last one and he had to make it count. The voices were getting louder and Naruto could faintly recognize that it was a man and a woman talking. Hoping to hear more, Naruto concentrated and used his Devil Fruit. Fur began to appear all over his body, black on his limbs and hands, white under his chin and on his chest, and the rest was red. Two bushy fox tails grew from his back, his face elongated into a half-snout that pulled back on his scars, black ears appeared on his head to replace his normal ones. Lastly, he grew teeth and claws. With his now enhanced hearing, Naruto could make out that the voices were Teuchi-ojisan and his mom's, and they were getting closer.

The lid to the barrel that Naruto was hiding in at the back of Ichiraku Ramen was lifted up and Kushina's smiling face that radiated death peered down at him, "There you are, Naruto. I've been looking all over for you, dattebane," she told him in an overly cheery voice, "I told you that we were working on your combat training today, not stealth."

Naruto's response was to shriek in terror and throw his smoke bomb at her face, but Kushina was ready for it this time. She grabbed the bomb, pegged Naruto between the eyes with it, and then slammed the lid back on the barrel. "Thank you again for helping me find my son, Teuchi-san. Can I borrow the barrel for a bit? I'll be sure to bring it back in a workable condition," she told the older man who owned her favorite place to eat, completely ignoring the swearing and hacking from inside said barrel. Naruto's enhanced senses were now working against him.

The man just gave her a smile behind his eyes that never seemed to open, "No, thank you, Kushina-san. It was nice of you to pay off an extra portion of your tab early. Take the barrel for as long as you need." He knew that the barrel wasn't coming back in one piece.

Chains quickly tied up the barrel and prevented the top from opening, no matter how hard Naruto kicked against it. Kushina then calmly walked out of the ramen shop and began to walk back home. Before she got far, Minato appeared in front of her, "Kushina, there you are. I've been trying to stop you from… What's with the barrel?" he warily asked.

"Oh, this old thing?" she asked with false innocence, "It's nothing you need to worry about."

Minato gave her the blandest look he could manage before shooting a beam of light from his finger and cut the chains holding the lid down. Naruto's foot then promptly removed the lid and his normal head popped out of the barrel surrounded by smoke. He began to gasp down great gulps of air while Minato raised an eyebrow at his wife, "Nothing to worry about?"

"Nothing at all."

Minato sighed and scratched the back of his head, a nervous tick that he had never quite managed to eliminate. He quickly grabbed Kushina and Naruto in his hands and turned his feet into light. With several quick steps off of strategically placed mirrors throughout the village he carried them to their house behind the Hokage Monument. "What am I going to do with you two," Minato muttered to himself.

Naruto jumped out of the barrel and clung to his dad as if he was his lifeline—which he was, "Dad, you've got to save me from Mom, dattebayo!"

"Minato, you've got a busy day ahead of you, organizing all those genin teams. Just leave Naruto with me and go back to work," Kushina said in the most convincing voice she had. The chains rattling and moving like snakes behind her ruined the image she was trying to project.

"Let's just all calm down for a minute," Minato advised. Seeing that Naruto was the cause of all this trouble he decided to start with him, "Naruto, why is your mother's hair black?"

"Because you left for work without taking a shower," Naruto replied.

Minato nodded, "See, Kushina, Naruto didn't mean to dye your hair black. It probably comes out really easily, right?" God he hoped so. If it didn't then Naruto was dead. And he had been so excited to become an official genin. Minato had even bought him a new set of kunai to celebrate.

Naruto rapidly nodded his head in agreement, "Yeah, all you have to do is run it under water. It's not even dye, just ink."

"There, you see? Just take another shower and your hair will be back to its beautiful red in no time," Minato told her before turning to Naruto, "And let this be a lesson to you about planning ahead. You never know when someone's plans will change and you could end up catching the wrong person instead."

Naruto nodded and Kushina went off to get another shower. Satisfied that the crisis was averted, Minato headed back to the Hokage Tower to finish with the teams. He needed to find a good floater to balance the anchors on that tracking team he was thinking of putting together. With names and abilities floating through his mind, Minato left.

Inside the house, Naruto slowly reached down to the pouch he had strapped to his leg back at the academy, "You're not letting me off the hook just because the dye comes out, are you?" he asked the empty room.

"Nope!" Kushina cheerfully called back from her bedroom, "You made me chase you around the entire village in nothing but a towel and threw several smoke bombs at me. We're going to have a fun sparing session today."

"Great," Naruto drawled out while taking stock of his surroundings. There were chains blocking off the windows and the door. He only had a couple kunai left and some ninja wire. Not the worse situation he'd ever been, but it was up there. He attempted to investigate the windows only to find that he couldn't move his left foot. A quick glance down revealed that one of his mom's chain was wrapped around his ankle and had tightened when he tried to move. _Now_ it was the worse situation he had ever been in.

Kushina appeared in the doorway with a set of clothes in her hands, "I'm going to take a shower to wash all this ink away. You sit tight until then and when I'm done we can go and have our little spar." Naruto mutely nodded and Kushina held out her hand, "The pouch." Naruto grumbled a bit, but tossed over the pouch. Kushina nodded and set it aside to return later before heading towards the bathroom.

Naruto waited until he heard the sound of the shower turning on before shifting entirely to his fox form. There was no way he was waiting around till she was done. He turned to get a grip on his leg, but his mother's voice stopped him, "And no biting off your leg!"

Naruto shifted back to normal. Damn, how did she do that? He needed to learn so he could avoid it in the future. She wasn't there to watch him, but he would swear that her chains sometimes had a mind of their own and he wasn't willing to chance it.

 **Next Day, Academy Classroom**

"So your mom caught you, huh?" Sasuke pointlessly asked.

"Shut up," Naruto told him before sliding into a seat at the same desk as Sasuke. Today he had managed to put his proper clothes on: blue shirt under an orange jacket, black pants, blue sandals, a pair of worn orange goggles on his head, and his forehead protector around his neck. The biggest change was the bandages he had on his forehead and cheeks. Sasuke knew that there were bound to be more under his shirt, Kushina didn't pull many punches when she trained someone, something about the pain helping people to learn. She was right, but that didn't make the learners feel any better.

Sasuke grunted at Naruto, "You know what the teams will be?" he asked.

Naruto snorted, "Nah. Dad didn't get home till late last night after I was asleep from all of Mom's "sparring". Even if I was awake there was no way I'd get them out of him. Dad's a real pushover most of the time, but when he gets serious his lips are sealed tighter than the Devil Fruit Vault's doors."

"Hn," was Sasuke's response. He had expected as much, but he still had to ask.

"I'll tell you this, though," Naruto leaned in and Sasuke unconsciously mimicked his friend's action, "I'll bet my left foot that the reason Iruka-sensei is telling us where to sit will have our teammates for the genin cell."

"You sure that it's not a fake out?"

"Pretty sure. From who's here it seems like a safe bet and I wouldn't put it past him." There were thirty kids in their class and ten three-man desks in the room. Naruto knew that only a third of the students would pass and their class was at a disadvantage from all the big names that were in it. Aburame, Inuzuka, Hyuga, Akamichi, Nara, Yamanaka, Uchiha, and Namikaze. Of those clans he knew for a fact that five of them had eaten Devil Fruits. None of the civilian kids in their class had eaten a fruit, so there was only one slot left for the top civilian student to take. There was always the off chance that the class could produce a fourth team, but from what they had demonstrated during the year Naruto figured that their class wouldn't. Sasuke agreed and the two began to discuss who was the best candidate for their class. Sasuke had gotten the Rookie of the Year position for all the classes and Naruto had taken the top spot for their class by default so the pair hadn't bothered to see where everyone else had fallen. Now they regretted that decision as they watched the rest of the kids file in.

"Well, we've got the civvie," Naruto muttered as he watched Hinata take her seat next to Kiba and Shino. That was the last member of the clans that wasn't confirmed to have a Devil Fruit.

"Hn," Sasuke muttered, "Think it'll be a problem?"

"Maybe, I don't remember much about the other kids. What do you think?"

"I think we'll be fine after a couple weeks of training. They'll be the best civilian in the class and if we help them improve as well then there shouldn't be a problem."

"Excuse me," Naruto felt a hand tap his shoulder and turned around. Behind him was a girl with long pink hair, pale skin, and green eyes. She was wearing dark biker shorts under her red dress, black sandals, and had her forehead protector acting as a headband. "You're blocking the other chair."

Naruto leaned back over to his side of the desk and allowed the girl to sit down. He casually leaned back in his chair and caught Sasuke's eye, "What's her name?" he silently mouthed behind her back. He had absolutely no idea who she was. She didn't sit next to him and wasn't from a clan or significant civilian family so there was really no reason he would need to learn her name if she was just a random civilian. Sure his dad knew pretty much everyone's name, but he was Hokage and Naruto wasn't even an official genin. The fact that he remembered all the names and faces his mom had made him learn was a miracle.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment and pulled out a piece of paper. He quickly scrawled something down, shook his head at it, then crossed it out before balling up the paper and throwing it over his shoulder. It bounced off the desk behind them and would have hit Naruto in the face if he hadn't caught it.

Naruto snorted as he watched Sasuke pull out a different piece of paper and start writing gibberish on it that looked as if it was about temperatures of flames. Bastard just had to show off. Naruto unfolded the message and read the name on it. Haruno Sakura. So that was their teammate's name, good to know. He crumpled the ball back up and burned it with a tiny blue flame under the table, leaving none the wiser about its message.

Shortly after, Iruka walked in and began to read off his speech about them graduating. Naruto tuned him out for the most part. He knew the basics of what Iruka was going to say and it was all just formality. When the names started popping up, then he'd pay attention. Naruto didn't have long to wait until Iruka got to reading the names, and it turned out that Naruto was right about the seating arrangements.

"Team Seven will consist of Haruno Sakura, Namikaze Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke."

Naruto and Sasuke shared a smirk and cocky grin before fist-bumping. Sakura had a more surprised reaction and looked at the two boys beside her nervously. She had just been put on a team with two of the best and most popular students in the school, let alone their class. Understandably, she had a case of nerves. "L-let's go team," she said with a slight stutter and winced. Great way to make a first impression, Sakura. Stuttering in front of your accomplished and cool teammates.

Iruka finished up the teams shortly after that. As suspected, the clan kids were put together. Team Ten was Yamanaka Ino; a girl with long pale blond hair that had a bang over her right eye and the rest in a ponytail, wearing a purple blouse and apron skirt with bandages around her waist and white sleeves on her arms; Nara Shikamaru, a boy with his black hair pulled back into a spiky ponytail and black eyes who was wearing a short gray jacket over a mesh undershirt, black pants, and had a set of gloves over his hands that he hadn't worn to class before. Last was Akamichi Choji; a heavyset boy with short, spiky brown hair and red swirls on his cheeks, who was clad in a green jacket over a pale shirt with the kanji for food, black shorts, bandages on his arms and legs, and a strange blue headband that went down the middle of his head.

Team Eight was Hyuga Hinata, a girl with short purplish hair and pale lavender eyes like the rest of her clan who was wearing a pale jacket and black pants; Inuzuka Kiba, a boy with two red fang-like tattoos on his cheeks who had his hair covered by a gray hoodie with dark fur-lining and a pair of black pants covering his legs. With him was Akamaru, Kiba's white puppy partner. Last was Aburame Shino, a boy with spiky brown hair that stood straight up and who always wore a pair of black glasses to hide his eyes like the rest of his clan. He had on a light gray coat with a collar high enough to cover his lower face, and brown pants.

The possible jonin instructors then began to enter one at a time to pick up their prospective genin. The newly made Team Seven was surprised when they were skipped over in the order, but didn't think anything of it. Then all the teams were picked up and they were waiting. Then it had been five minutes and they were still waiting. By the time it had reached ten minutes, two of the members had an idea of what was going on.

"You don't think—" Sasuke began.

"There's no way Dad would let him teach a team. He's too busy doing all those high-ranked missions to take on a team of genin," Naruto firmly stated.

"Who are you two talking about?" Sakura asked, her curiosity over their missing jonin overriding her awkwardness.

"That would be me," a voice told her from the still unrepaired window. The voice's owner was a young man dressed in the Konoha uniform with his forehead protector in place. He had black eyes and matching spiky hair. The man smiled at them while giving a two-fingered greeting, "Yo. Sorry I'm late, but I had to help an old lady with her groceries. I'm your jonin instructor, Uchiha Obito."

 **A/N: So that's the first chapter. More of a prologue than an actual chapter. As you can tell there's going to be some major breaks from canon with Obito here. I'll have to make up some Devil Fruit to fit with all the characters' signature moves/abilities and bullshit my way through other fighting styles like the Hyuga clan's.** **That's for later though, so… later.**


	2. Chapter 2: Lessons

**Fruits of War**

 **Chapter 2: Lessons**

"Talking"

'Thinking'

Devil Fruit

 **Location/Time Change**

* * *

 **Academy Rooftop**

Obito had insisted that the team meet up on the roof to do an ice-breaker activity. He was leaning against the railing while the others sat cross-legged across from him. "Okay, here's how this'll work. We'll start by telling each other our names and three things about ourselves. Likes, dislikes, and hobbies. Naruto'll start, then it'll go Sakura, Sasuke, me. Any questions?"

Naruto waved his hand, "Yeah. Why are we doing this, Obito-oj… er sensei? Sasuke and I've known you since we were kids and we've been classmates with Sakura for years. Aren't you and her the only ones that really need to get to know each other?" Naruto was only implying that he knew Sakura. He still had no clue who she was, but wasn't willing to reveal that to the girl. Great way to start off being teammates, let one of your partners find out that you barely knew that they existed.

Obito put his hand over his face. He really should have seen this coming when he learned that both Naruto and Sasuke were going to be on his team, but still. "Naruto, ever since I became a jonin I've dreamt of having my own team of genin. I've been waiting _years_ for this moment. Would it kill you to humor me?" he pleaded.

"Alright, alright." Naruto rolled his eyes before standing up and clearing his throat, "My name's Namikaze Naruto. I like ramen, pranks, training, my friends, and my family. I dislike training with my mom when she's mad at me, learning about politics, and getting caught when pranking. My hobbies are… well I guess pranking counts as training, so training and eating ramen."

Naruto sat down and Sakura slowly got to her feet. She fidgeted for a bit before beginning, "My name's Haruno Sakura. I like spending time with my friends, gardening, and shopping. I dislike people that judge others on appearance. My hobby is… gardening, I guess. Uh, that's it."

Obito nodded after Sakura quickly sat down. He could tell that she was nervous around himself and her new teammates. From what he had gathered earlier she was from a merchant family and was friends with the Yamanaka girl in her class. She must have enough of an understanding about shinobi politics to know that the three of them were from the top of the shinobi social ladder and easily surpassed her in skill. The only odd thing was the determination when she said she didn't like people that judged on appearance earlier. Maybe she had been bullied when she was younger for her hair? it was an odd color. Looks like he was going to have to work on making Sakura comfortable around her teammates and her confidence. Obito nodded to Sasuke, "And lastly, my adorable cousin."

Sasuke glared at Obito—who gave him a cheeky grin in response—before speaking, "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I like my family, training, my friend, and fire. I dislike things that waste my time, certain members of my clan," here he sent a pointed look at Obito, who dramatically overacted being stabbed, "clan politics, and failure. My hobby is training."

Obito clapped his hands, "I already introduced myself, but I'm Uchiha Obito. My likes are my wife Rin, my team, Konoha, and helping others. My dislikes are those that abandon their comrades. My hobby is also training."

Sakura worriedly looked at the other three members of her team. All of them had pretty similar hobbies and obviously knew each other. She decided that she'd put more time into training and would do her best to try and get along with them in order to avoid becoming an outcast in her own team.

Obito started speaking again and pulled Sakura from her thoughts, "So that's it for introductions. Tomorrow we start with our first official duties as shinobi." The three graduates perked up at the news of an official mission and Obito smiled. He leaned his head on one hand and his smile turned cruel, "I wouldn't be so excited if I was you. Our first mission is a survival test." Obito smiled wider at their confusion and decided to lay it on a little thicker, "Don't you know? Out of everyone in your class only three teams will become official genin. The rest of them will fail and can never become ninja!"

Obito internally congratulated himself. He remembered when Minato-sensei had given his team the same speech and had been waiting to use it. He had done his best to mimic Kakashi's mannerisms as well. His more serious teammate's delivery and professionalism had always been taken more seriously than Obito's own outgoing and sunny personality. When he looked at his new genin team's faces he saw the terror and surprise on Sakura's face that he was expecting, but Naruto and Sasuke both looked unimpressed.

"We know," Naruto said. "The teams that'll fail are made up of the civilian kids. The actual teams all have Devil Fruit users and the clan kids on their teams. The civilians get an academy education, are failed as genin, and then go on to their civilian jobs with the basics of how to defend themselves. Sasuke and I both have eaten Devil Fruits and Sakura's the best civilian kid so she's our floater. Unless we're all complete garbage we'll pass no problem. And Sasuke was Rookie of the Year and I was the best in our class, so that won't be an issue."

Obito lost all pretenses of acting terrifying and stared at Naruto with an open mouth. The little bastard just went and took all the wind out of his sails and the sail with it. Did Minato-sensei actually teach him how the system worked? What the hell?! That took the fun out of giving them the bell test. How was he supposed to give it when Naruto just outlined that they didn't actually have to pass it, but just give a good showing? Sakura wasn't even scared anymore. She actually looked indignant. "Goddammit, Naruto," Obito eventually cursed after regaining his composure. "Who told you that?"

"Dad brought some student profiles and let me help out with some of the team creations once when he was running late on making teams and Mom was out on a mission. He told me how they worked then."

Obito cursed his sensei in his head and grumbled while pulling out three sets of papers. He handed them to the kids and began to explain, "These explain where to meet tomorrow and what we'll be doing. These are liability forms to fill out to apply to become official genin. And this is a bunch of stuff for your parents that hand you over to the Konoha military so you can become genin. That's it for me. See you guys tomorrow. Eight o'clock sharp." Obito distractedly waved at them and then jumped off of the roof onto the other roofs through the village.

"So what now?" Sakura nervously asked. She didn't really know either boy beyond their classroom reputations. Sasuke was the smartest kid in their class and one of the best fighters, but he was a bit of a loner and didn't talk to many people outside of the clan kids and even then he rarely talked to them according to Ino. Naruto was a troublemaker and prankster, but he was the best in class at stealth and traps and was also one of the best fighters. Iruka-sensei had paired the two against each other often so that they wouldn't end up completely dominating their opponents. He was apparently outgoing and always willing to lend a hand, but most of the civilian kids had avoided him because they were nervous about doing something to upset the Hokage's son. A popular rumor around the village was that the Anbu commander had a squad of some of the best Anbu members following Naruto around and if anything were to happen to him on their watch all surviving members were stripped of their rank and demoted to permanent genin. That tended to frighten off children that didn't really expect anything more dangerous than the mock academy fights in their lives.

Naruto and Sasuke shared a look and came to a silent decision, "We plan."

* * *

 **Ichiraku Ramen**

"You know, when you said we were going to plan I expected something more… professional." Sakura commented while the trio waited for their order. Naruto and Sasuke had led her through the village to this nice little ramen stand and introduced her to Teuchi, the owner, and his daughter and assistant, Ayame. She was a young woman with long brown hair and a friendly smile.

"This is literally the only place Naruto will choose to eat. I only agree because he always pays," Sasuke said. "You could find him anytime just by staking out outside and waiting five minutes."

"Really…" Sakura tried to smile, but it came out as shaky as her answer. Time to change the subject. "So why are we planning for tomorrow? You already said that we were basically guaranteed to pass."

"Obito-sensei's known me since I was a baby and he's Sasuke's cousin somehow—I think on his mom's side? Anyways, he isn't going to go easy on us during the bell test and if we manage to impress him enough we might be able to move on to doing C-ranked missions instead of the crappy D-ranked ones," Naruto explained.

Sasuke noticed that Sakura still didn't understand and elaborated, "D-ranked missions are basically glorified chores that anyone can hire genin teams to do. They're supposed to support teamwork and let new teams get to know each other and earn some cash. Genin teams pretty much spend their time either working or training so we learn how to work in teams and get stronger before we are allowed to go out on actual missions."

Sakura nodded in understanding. Now that she thought about it, she had occasionally seen genin working around the village but had never paid any attention to it. She had always thought that it was an official ninja thing and it had never concerned her. "So if we show that we can work together and take on Obito-sensei…"

"We should be able to cut down on how long it'll take us to go on real missions," Naruto finished.

Sakura could get behind that. She didn't want to be anybody's glorified servant. "How are we going to do that?"

Naruto's face stretched into a giant grin and even Sasuke had a small smile. They were happy to see Sakura so on board with their plan. "First things first," Naruto said in the most serious voice he could manage while watering at the mouth. Three bowls of steaming ramen were placed in front of the kids. "Time to eat!"

While the trio enjoyed their meal they outlined their plans for beating their jonin sensei during tomorrow's test. Naruto explained the basics of the bell test and outlined his plans. Sasuke would add input whenever he thought that Naruto had missed something or could add parts that would be helpful. Sakura sat through the planning mostly nodding along with what he said and nervously coming to terms with the lifestyle she had now been pulled into. She raised a good point once or twice, but overall felt that she didn't contribute much in planning. She resolved to do better in the morning.

After their plan was set in stone, the three finished their meal and Naruto paid for it. They agreed to gather their things and meet up at the training spot tomorrow two hours early to prepare. They then went their separate ways and returned to their families. That night, Naruto and Sasuke set up their things for tomorrow and went to bed easily, but Sakura stayed up late; unable to sleep due to nerves. When she finally nodded off it was to a restless sleep.

* * *

 **Training Grounds**

The morning sun was well on its way into the sky and the three wannabe genin were bored. Sasuke had woken up first and had met up with Naruto on the way to the training grounds. Sakura had arrived shortly after that and they had set to work in booby trapping the entire forest. Naruto was in charge of the operation since he was one of the best trappers in the entire village. They had set up every trap in the book and then some. All nonlethal by shinobi standards in case they forgot to take some of them down. None of them expected Obito to actually get caught in them. He was an experienced jonin and had probably dealt with more traps then they could count. No, the traps were just to slow him down and distract him. Sure there was a chance that he could get caught in some of Naruto's convoluted chained traps, but those only worked if he happened to choose one certain direction to take. The three were planning to lead him on a merry goose chase through the woods, get him stuck dealing with the traps, and then make a desperate grab for the bells.

"He's late," Sakura said for what must have been the hundredth time. According to the sun it was around ten and Obito had told them to get there at eight. For the past two hours they had done nothing but sit around and be bored. At first they had tried talking to each other, but eventually ran out of ideas. Naruto had suggested kunai throwing contests and that had distracted them for a bit, but not for long. Then kunai turned into shuriken, then into rocks, then into rock-paper-scissors. Sakura had stopped somewhere around fifty-five to sixty-two to thirty-three. She hadn't been doing very well.

"Obito-sensei's always late," Sasuke commented from his spot leaning against one of the two wooden posts without kunai and shuriken scratches. "He's so nice that he can't help helping people around the village on his ways to places. Mom says that he'll be late to his own funeral."

"Dad used to tell me stories of how they could never start a mission on time because Obito-sensei would hold them up. He'd always arrive running and saying some excuse about helping old ladies or something. They were always true, but they didn't find that out until about the fifth time he did it. Then Dad would tell them to report, like, an hour earlier than they had to so that Obito-sensei'd show up on time. It got to the point that his tardiness spread to the whole team and none of them could show up on time anywhere because they kept forgetting that other people actually scheduled things on time," Naruto recounted.

"That's pretty sad," Sakura muttered. Then she panicked. What if the same thing happened to them? If Obito was going to make them late to every mission or training session, then they'd end up with his reputation of being late!

"I wasn't really that bad."

The trio looked around to find Obito perched on top of the scarred post. "Yo."

"You're late!" Sakura yelled at him. "And what do you mean you weren't that bad? You just showed up two hours late to our first training mission!" She crossed her arms at him, "That doesn't exactly set a good precedent, does it, Obito-sensei?"

"Don't be like that. I've got a good reason this time." The three waited in silence for several seconds until Obito pulled out three bells, "Now for the bell test."

"Why were you late?!" Sakura and Naruto screamed. Sasuke just rolled his eyes. This was a waste of time.

Obito continued as if he hadn't heard them, "I'm sure by now that our resident smartass," Naruto squawked out an angry noise and was ignored, "told you all how the bell test works. Two bells, two victors, loser doesn't eat lunch. So I had to mix it up a little." Obito jangled all three bells for emphasis, " _This_ bell test requires you all to get a bell. If even one of you doesn't get a bell, then none of you can eat lunch." This time all three made protests, but Obito continued to talk over them, "Also, instead of automatically passing because you've got some fancy Devil Fruits you only become official genin if you can take all three bells from me."

"What?! There's no way that you convinced my dad to agree to that!" Naruto shouted in disbelief.

"You're right. I didn't," Obito admitted.

"Then why—?"

"Your mother did."

Naruto deflated. Yeah, he could believe that. He may have been able to wrap his dad around his finger, but his mom could wrap both of them around her pinkie toe at the same time. There was no way his dad would be able to outlast his mom.

"So!" Obito said to gain everyone's attention again. "Come at me with the intent to kill or else you'll fail. This timer will be set to go off at noon. If it goes off and I still have a bell left, then you all fail." Obito got up and pulled a timer out of his bag and placed it on the post he had previously been sitting on.

While his back was turned, Sasuke attempted to cut the bells free, but was stopped by Obito's foot kicking him in the face. "Hey. I didn't even start the timer yet," Obito reprimanded as if Sasuke was cheating at a game.

Sasuke spat to the side, "I don't remember you saying that we had to wait."

Obito paused as if he was considering Sasuke's point, "Fair enough." Then the man tapped the button and the timer started. "Begin."

A flurry of shuriken was hurled at Obito in response. He dodged out of the way and his three students vanished into the trees. They quickly regrouped to discuss what to do, "What's going on? I thought you two knew what was going to happen?" Sakura harshly whispered while still trying to remain quiet.

"So did we. Obito-sensei's deciding to play some real hardball."

"Look. It doesn't matter. The plan's the same, the stakes are just a lot higher than we originally thought," Sasuke reminded them. "First off, we need to get deeper into the woods to where we set all the traps. We're going to have to open with our riskier plans."

"Let's go."

The trio darted off into the woods and soon made a hazardous discovery. Their traps had been moved. The locations that they had memorized were now useless as many of their traps had been switched or changed completely. Pitfalls were filled in and replaced with rope nooses, spike traps were now where bear traps had been, places that were supposed to be safe were now lethal. They quickly stopped running and found a safe place on a tree branch.

"What the hell is going on?" Sakura shakily repeated her earlier question. "What's happening?"

"He switched the traps," Naruto muttered in disbelief. "That bastard switched all of our traps around."

"And added new ones!" Obito cheerily called out. The genin started and found him standing on the branch of a different tree above them. "You had such a good idea yesterday to trap the forest that I just couldn't resist helping you out." He smiled at the looks of horror on his student's faces as they realized what was happening. "Yeah, little advice; don't discuss your plans in a public place. You never know who could be listening."

"So you were so late to the meeting because you were in the woods changing everything around," Sasuke said what they were all thinking.

"Technically I was right on time, but you are right about why I didn't show myself for two hours. Let this be a lesson to you all: don't go bragging about knowing something that other people don't know you know. Information is worth more than gold, and if you let people know you have it they'll do their damnedest to make sure that it's useless," Obito told them.

"So you were spying on us the whole time and learned our entire plan," Sakura said.

"Yep. Then I adjusted to this new information and turned it to my advantage. That's how the job works. Granted, all this learning won't be much good if you can't grab all of these." Obito held up the bells and jingled them. Naruto got annoyed and chucked a kunai at him only for Obito to grab it out of midair, "It won't be that easy."

Naruto growled in frustration. "Guys, let's get him!" Naruto yelled before leaping up the tree at Obito, Sasuke and Sakura just behind him.

Obito raised an eyebrow in amusement. A straight charge at the enemy wasn't a very good plan at all and he was kinda disappointed that they were resorting to it so quickly after their first plan fell apart, but he decided to humor the three. Naruto reached him first and Obito deflected his punch with no issue and then proceeded to block all of Naruto's attacks with the same hand. Before Sasuke and Sakura arrived he caught a punch, twisted Naruto's arm around, and then kicked him in the butt into a net trap that he was quickly wrapped up in. Sasuke attacked with a kunai that Obito swiftly disarmed him of. Sakura attacked in tandem with Sasuke, but she was obviously weaker and slower than her teammate which allowed Obito to quickly knock her out of the running by pinning the back of her shirt to the tree trunk with his stolen kunai. Sasuke attempted to capitalize on Sakura's distraction, but Obito slipped under his kick and dropped to a lower branch to avoid a thrown shuriken. A glance up showed that Sasuke had three shuriken in each hand and was preparing to throw them. Obito drew a kunai to block the shuriken and plucked a set out of midair. He then discovered that Sasuke had wires attached to them and had his hand yanked across his body. The jonin spun with the pull and used the momentum to drag Sasuke forward and backhanded his face. He attempted to pull Sasuke in for another strike, but a set of shuriken came down from the sky and cut the wire. Obito glanced up and stepped back to avoid Naruto's dropkick. The blonde had gone into his hybrid form and Obito felt the wind from Naruto's claws passing inches from his nose. Sakura then tried to throw a kunai at him, but he merely grabbed it out of midair and threw it back ring first, striking her in the forehead. The force sent her off balance and falling from the limb. Obito noticed that she was heading towards a bear trap and rushed to catch her.

Sakura was caught and they landed across from the concealed trap. Sakura opened her eyes after noticing that she hadn't crashed into the ground. She looked up at Obito in confusion, "Why?"

"Because I'm your sensei. I'm here to teach you, not kill you," Obito explained in a soft tone. He had probably put a little too much force into that last throw. The bruise was already forming. Probably should have aimed for a body shot as well.

"Thank you," Sakura sincerely said. Obito gave an easy smile and set her down. He felt a hand brush by his side and snatched Sakura's wrist. He pulled it to the side to see one of the bells clasped in her hand and nearly pulled off his belt. "Nice try, but not good enough."

The sound of Sasuke screaming gained Obito's attention and he turned his head to see his relative in mid-leap with two kunai thrusting at Obito. Obito was disappointed. That was a perfectly good sneak attack that he just wasted. Sasuke was supposed to be better than that. Then Sasuke's body began to turn into flames as kunai and shuriken passed through him inches away from Obito. 'Shit!' On instinct, Obito activated his Devil Fruit and allowed the kunai to pass through him. It also allowed Sakura to slip through his grasp along with one of the bells.

The trio regrouped and Obito was forced to admit that that had been a pretty good tactic, "You got me. I didn't think that you'd pull off both of those at once, but you did. Color me impressed." His eyes narrowed, "But don't think that I'll fall for that again."

The genin grimaced, that had been one of their better ideas. Sakura faking an injury to get close to Obito since it was just training and using Sasuke to block Obito's vision and then throwing kunai through him had been some of their more desperate plans. They were only good for one use before he'd see through the trick. Using both at once left them a disadvantage. They were fortunate enough that Sakura actually got knocked off balance towards a trap and improvised in time. Sasuke and Naruto had adjusted on the fly when they saw that Obito had caught her trying to swipe the bells. It had worked to a degree, but they were running low on options.

"Come on, guys. One down two to go!" Naruto attempted to raise morale. Sakura gave him a small grin in response and Sasuke smirked.

"Yeah, no. You're not going to touch a bell again," Obito told them. He had been overconfident earlier. He was too preoccupied with trying to teach them something rather than actually protecting the bells. This wasn't a fight they were supposed to win and he was going to make sure they knew it.

And by the time Obito was done they did. He kept his promise about them not touching a bell. Hell, they didn't even get to touch him. Obito dominated the three genin. Sakura was the first to go down. She was the weakest link and Obito took advantage of that by separating her from the two boys and taking her out then. A blocked kunai and tap to the back of the head and she was out of the fight. Naruto and Sasuke tried to attack him after that, but he merely tossed Sakura at them to split them up. Sasuke caught her and Naruto was already committed to his attack. He used sweeping strikes in an attempt to hit Obito with his claws, but the man countered them with the kunai he had stolen from Sakura. Fireballs were avoided even at close range and when Naruto went into his full two-tailed kitsune form Obito had no problem dealing with the teeth trying to get a grip on his face. Thanks to Naruto's new form, Obito was able to grab him by a tail and drag him into a knee strike that was followed up with a choke slam. Sasuke finished checking on Sakura at the time and then tried to engulf Obito in a wave of fire. The man just walked through the flames and punched him in the jaw. Sasuke was knocked back into a tree and had to rapidly dodge all of Obito's attacks. Obito eventually set into a rhythm, but quickly noticed that Sasuke was dodging all of his punches no matter how fast he threw them. Eyes widening in surprise, he immediately dropped into a leg sweep that covered his entire left side and felt it pay off when he struck Sasuke's leg from behind. A glance over to where Naruto had been showed the boy sweating heavily while holding one hand out towards Obito. A quick kunai ring to the head dropped him. Sasuke tried one last desperate attack now that both his teammates were behind him, but before he could finish charging it Obito nailed him in the gut and then hammer fisted him into the dirt.

The jonin observed his three defeated students and scratched the back of his head—a trait he had picked up from his sensei. "Maybe went a bit overboard there."

* * *

A loud ringing sound assaulted three pairs of ears and brought them back to the wakefulness. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura groggily woke up only to find that all three of them were tied to the posts in the middle of the training grounds. "Hey?! What the hell?!" Naruto shouted while he struggled against the bonds, but he was stuck fast.

"Wakey, wakey, kiddos," Obito cheerfully told them. He was sitting across from the posts with four lunchboxes in front of him. "So that was the timer for noon going off and you all only have one bell so you know what that means," he cheerfully said in a singsong tone that was really pissing the three off. Then they remembered the rules of the training.

Three heads hung in disappointment and frustration, some more affected than others. "Were stuck going back to the academy," Sasuke bitterly said. It left a horrible feeling in his mouth just saying that. Failure. He had been Rookie of the Year and now he'd be stuck doing over his academy days just because Obito hadn't gotten the chance to watch his genin team squirm over the bell test. It wasn't fair! And what about Naruto? The Hokage's son and the Rookie of the Year both held back. Pathetic. The only person this really didn't affect was Sakura. She was a civilian nobody. Hell, she probably wouldn't bother retaking the academy course and just go back to her civilian life.

"What? No. You all passed. You just don't get to eat lunch and have to watch me eat mine."

Three sets of thought grounded to a halt in an instant. Robotically, the three genin raised their heads to look at Obito. The man had already opened his lunchbox and was eating the riceballs with gusto. Rin was a really good cook. Certainly better than Obito—who could burn water.

"But!... Why? How...?" Naruto sputtered out in a mess as three different questions piled up on top of each other and jammed in his mouth.

"What the _hell_ is going on?!" Sakura shouted for the third time within two hours.

"I lied." Obito's simple answer floored them. Their eyes bugged out and he watched in amusement as bursts flames started to pop up all over Sasuke's body, especially around his eyes. "Did you guys really think that the Hokage would fail a team with two powerful Devil Fruit eaters just because I asked him to?"

"But you said…" Naruto began only to be cut off.

"I lied," Obito repeated. "I never talked to your mom about this, even if she would have been all for it and will probably be pissed that I didn't tell her so she could watch your reactions. I just feed you a scenario that you could easily believe."

"So what was the point of all this?" Sasuke asked while gesturing to himself, his still bound teammates, and the training grounds. His flames had burned through the rope around him and he could now move freely. And now Naruto followed his lead and burned through his ropes as well as Sakura's. What was the point of tying them up with rope? Two out of the three could use fire and one of those was intangible.

"The point of this exercise, as with every other exercise I'll have you guys do, is to teach you some sense. Hence, why I'm called your sensei." There was no response to Obito other than several crickets that were chirping in the distance. He suspected that an Aburame was nearby and making fun of him. Note to self: convince Naruto to prank the Aburame at a later date. Obito awkwardly coughed into his hand, "Anyways! There were several important lessons here that I was trying to teach you all. Would anyone care to guess?"

"Don't discuss our plans in public places."

Obito shot Naruto an annoyed look at his smartassed remark. "That's technically correct, but not much of a guess since I already told you that one. Any _other_ guesses?" More crickets. Definitely going to encourage Naruto to prank the Aburame. Maybe turn it into a stealth exercise. That's what Kushina did wasn't it? From all of Naruto's stories it seemed to work. Plus, he'd have a viable excuse if they got caught. But he was getting off track. "Okay so there were several lessons here. I already told you about not discussing your plans in public places. Sometimes you won't be able to help yourself, so you'll have to improvise. Common covers are pretending to discuss book or movie plots and if you know who you're working with well enough you can reference past events or missions where you did something similar to your current plan." Obito gestured with his chopsticks towards the three of them, "For instance, now the three of you can reference the bell test if you want to talk about booby trapping something. Seriously, where did you guys even find enough stuff for all those traps? Did you raid an armory?"

"Yes," Sasuke deadpanned.

Obito's eyes widened at that and he looked back into the forest. They were probably gonna have to gather up those traps then or Fugaku was going to have their heads for taking so much stuff from the Uchiha Armory, which also doubled as the police force's armory. Damn, kids went all in on that one. He didn't even think there were bear traps in the armory. "Lesson number two!" Also one that had been mentioned earlier, "Don't go bragging about what you know. A secret is best kept between three people if two of them are dead. That means don't go bragging about knowing something in advance when you could just quietly inform your partners if they need to know. Naruto, what do you think would have happened if you hadn't told me that you knew about how the genin teams were chosen or talked about how the bell test worked?"

"You would have given us the regular bell test and wouldn't have bothered to lie about my dad making it so we had to succeed to pass," the blonde mumbled out in embarrassment. That kind of made this whole escapade his fault and now he felt guilty. And Sakura was giving him the evil eye. Man, she had a pretty good evil eye. Not as good as his mom's of course, but still pretty good.

"Right. Then you all could have just shown off some teamwork and I wouldn't have thought to check for traps, so you probably would have gotten the two bells without any issues." There was some shuffling and grumbles while bruises were rubbed, but nothing more. "Moving on, another lesson is that if a contact is late then there's a chance you've walked into a trap. How late was I this morning—from your perspective?"

"Two hours."

"And how late am I normally?"

Naruto and Sasuke had a quick discussion amongst themselves before answering, "About half an hour, an hour tops."

"So it should have sent off some warning bells when I was so late, right?"

More mumbling before he got some disgruntled 'yeses'. Everything Obito was pointing out seemed so obvious now and the three were kicking themselves for missing it. They were supposed to be the smart kids.

"Last lesson, when you realize that you're outmatched, run," Obito became deadly serious and his eyes seemed to lose focus on his student, "We aren't a bunch of samurai. There's no honor in death, just emptiness and pain. There's also no use in a dead shinobi, but a live one can always be useful, even if they're crippled. The good of the village is more important than anyone's honor. If you have important information and end up fighting someone that can kill you just because they called you a coward, then the village won't learn what that is because you'll be lying dead in a ditch somewhere with a giant hole in your chest." The kids took a moment to let that sink in and then Obito blinked and he was back to normal. "That's it for today's lessons. All that's left is the team picture."

The three teammates lined up in front of a camera that Obito had stashed earlier and was now set up on a tripod. Obito clicked the button and rushed to take up his place behind them. Sakura was in the middle and grabbed both the boys' arms to pull them in and Obito placed a hand on their outside shoulders, "Smile!"

The camera went off and Obito went over to grab the picture. He waved it around a few times for the ink to dry and then showed it to them. It was a pretty good picture, with everybody smiling and together like a proper team should be.

"And with this Team Seven is now officially formed!"

* * *

 **A/N: So I got a pretty good response from the first chapter and here's the second one. A glimpse of Obito's Devil Fruit and the formation of Team Seven. And before anyone gets up in arms about Sakura's family being merchants instead of shinobi I've changed it. I hate that part of her background. She seems to have no idea what shinobi life is like outside of the classroom, there is no mention of her parents helping her grow or develop as a ninja despite the fact that her life is on the line, no mention to her parents giving her even the most basic advice like cutting her hair, and the whole point of her parents being ninja seemed to be shoehorned in for the movie so that she could gain some perspective on Naruto's life. So in this fic her parents are merchants and all she knows about the shinobi life is what she's heard from Ino and what the academy taught her. Wanted to get that cleared up. Until next month (hopefully). Later.**


	3. Chapter 3: Goddamn Wave Country

**Fruits of War**

 **Chapter 3: Goddamn Wave Country**

 **A/N: It's time for everyone's favorite Naruto arc, the Wave Arc. Of course I'm going to try to put my own little spin on it since things have changed thanks to the Devil Fruits. I will say one thing first, no Zabuza or Haku here. They'll show up later, a lot later.**

"Talking"

'Thinking'

Devil Fruit

 **Location/Time Change**

* * *

 **Konoha**

Obito was perched atop a roof while following the progress of his students. They were doing fairly well for their first mission without his direct control. He reached up to the shortwave radio in his ear, "Report."

There was a burst of static that made Obito curse before Naruto's voice could be heard, "—fucking mutts!" Then another burst of static cut him off.

"Naruto's down," Sasuke reported before Obito could ask. "He ran into Kurenai-sensei's team while they were walking the Inuzuka's dogs and got treed."

Obito sighed in frustration. He was half-tempted to just leave the blond in the tree. Naruto knew better than to go near a bunch of dogs. Hopefully he wouldn't start throwing fireballs at them. "Does he need help?"

"No. Kurenai-sensei's team is trying to get the dogs under control. He'll get out, but he won't be much help unless we lose Tora again," Sasuke answered.

"Speaking of Tora; how're you doing, Sakura?" Obito asked.

"I've still got her in sight," Sakura's voice was heard. "She's headed towards the Hokage Tower from the Restaurant District."

"Moving to intercept," Sasuke said before cutting his feed.

Obito rose from his crouch and got his bearings. With a quick jump he began to head towards the Hokage Tower. He wanted to see how his two students would try to catch the cat. Tora was a slippery devil whose capture was a common mission for new genin teams. Her owner had a tendency to hug the cat too tight and leave the windows open, so he kept getting out. It was pretty much tradition to give the job to a genin team that was either getting too confident or as a test for their abilities. Obito had to book the mission about a week ago and was eager to see the results.

Meanwhile, Sakura was also running on the rooftops after the damned cat. She had nearly lost her when Naruto had tangled with the dogs, but had managed to find the red ribbon on her right ear. Now she was keeping her in view while waiting for Sasuke to grab her. She didn't know how, but none of them could keep up with Tora. She had been outrunning them for about twenty minutes and that was after Naruto had spent ten minutes tracking her down. This was turning into a half hour job just to catch a brown housecat. A glint caught Sakura's eye and she saw Sasuke signaling to her. Nodding in understanding, Sakura stopped running and threw a pair of shuriken to Tora's right.

The cat jumped to the left and into an alley to avoid the weapons and landed right where Sasuke wanted. The dark-haired boy swept out his hands and formed a ring of fire around the cat and made sure to make the flames high enough so that Tora wouldn't be able to leap out of them. While the cat was looking for a way out of the trap, Sasuke dropped a weighted net onto it before dispelling the flames. Tora continued to struggle in the net, but only made her position worse.

Sakura caught up to him while he was pulling the cat out of the net while ignoring her attempts to claw him, "Nice job, Sasuke." She wiped the sweat off her face and took deep breathes to get her heartrate down. A closer look at Sasuke showed that he was breathing only a little heavier than normal as well, but he was in better shape than Sakura and had taken a shorter path to cut her and the cat off, so that was expected.

Obito dropped down next to the pair. "Nice job, team," he said with a smile. "Though the ring of fire was a bit much, Sasuke." He knew that there wasn't anyone around to see it other than Sakura and himself, but still. A little discretion wouldn't have hurt.

"No it wasn't. I didn't set the cat on fire," Sasuke replied.

Obito couldn't decide if his something-something-cousin was joking or not and changed the subject. "We'll drop her off at the Tower after we pick up Naruto from which ever tree he's in."

"No need," Naruto said while joining them in the alley. His hair was disheveled and there were several tears in his clothes, but he seemed fine. "Guess I'm too late to help."

"A little," Obito told him with an eye-roll. "I thought you knew better than to mess with the Inuzuka dogs."

"Hey, it wasn't my fault this time," Naruto protested. "They were upwind of me and that stupid cat tricked me. She sat down on a fence and baited those dogs to come after her. I was lucky Hinata and Shino were there to help keep them at bay."

"So she baited you as well as the dogs," Sasuke pointed out. Naruto scowled and flipped him off. Sasuke ignored him.

"What about their other team member? What's his name… Kiba?" Sakura asked.

"Kiba? He's a dick," Naruto dismissed the Inuzuka boy with a wave. "Bastard wanted to leave me in the tree for riling the dogs up."

"Well, since the gang's all here let's go drop Tora off at the Tower then get lunch," Obito suggested.

Naruto cheered in agreement and Sasuke and Sakura nodded in agreement. The former still ignoring the cat claws that kept passing through his face. While Obito led the way to the Hokage Tower, Sakura fell behind the group. They were all different than she had expected. When she had first joined the team she had been so nervous and worried. Sasuke and Naruto were so far ahead of her and just seemed so much stronger. Sakura had never had any desire to become a genin. She was just supposed to finish school and then help her parents with work. Ino dropping by to chat was the closest she had ever expected to get to the shinobi life. Now she was enjoying being a genin. They'd get up every morning and meet at the Hokage Tower and wait for Obito-sensei to show up late like he always did. Then they'd spend the morning doing chor—D-rank missions around the village before stopping to eat lunch and then train until they had to go home for dinner. It was a nice schedule and doing the missions together were fun. Sakura had quickly learned that Sasuke and Naruto liked to poke fun at each other and apparently had preferred insults. Sasuke would call Naruto a dumbass and then he'd call Sasuke a bastard, then they'd argue a bit before starting to fight. It was kind of funny to watch actually. Obito-sensei would watch them while they worked and would sometimes offer advice for how to do things faster or more efficiently. Sakura was even starting to grow to like the sparring. Sure she wasn't able to beat Naruto or Sasuke yet, but she was learning. A hand went up to her now short hair. After both Naruto and Sasuke had taken advantage of her long hair in their first spar, Sakura had chosen to cut it so that it only reached her shoulders. Obito-sensei was teaching them about more than just fighting. They had lessons on trapping, tracking, ambushes, all kinds of things. He was a much better teacher than most of the academy ones. Sakura had learned that the shampoo and soap she used to wash left a scent that made her easier to track and had switched to a scentless variety that was made especially for shinobi. She was doing a lot of that recently. Slowly the dolls and toys in her room were being replaced by weapons and camping supplies. It was strange to think about how much her life was changing.

"Oi, Sakura!" Naruto's voice broke Sakura out of her thoughts. "Let's go. I don't want to be late to Ichiraku's."

Sakura realized that she had fallen behind while they were walking and hurried to catch up. She got there in time to hear Sasuke telling Naruto that it was his turn to pick where they'd have lunch and he wasn't eating ramen again that week. Naruto whined at Sasuke and pleaded for him to reconsider only to get threatened with the still snarling cat the Uchiha was carrying. Obito and Sakura got a laugh in at Naruto's expense and Sakura smiled.

It was really nice to be on a genin team.

* * *

 **Jonin Bar**

"Teaching a genin team is so boring," Obito complained while sitting across from his companion. Between them was a sake bottle and two saucers. Obito's friend rolled his gray eye and sipped his drink through the navy mask on his face. The man was wearing the standard uniform with the addition of his mask, that was attached to his shirt, and a tanto that was strapped to his back over his flak jacket. The man had his forehead protector halfway down his face so that it covered his left eye and still managed to hold his spiky gray hair back from his forehead. It strangely seemed to defy gravity with how straight it stuck up.

"Oh? What happened to being so excited about becoming a jonin sensei? Don't tell me you're ready to quit already," the man jokingly asked. He knew what Obito was suffering from. He was too used to high-ranked and dangerous missions where your life was constantly in danger. The drop from missions like high profile assassinations to watching a couple of kids picking weeds was steep. It was one of the reasons he had never left Anbu. Sure he made sure to take cooldown missions, but those were at least B-rank. If he had to watch over a genin team he'd probably go insane.

"Fuck you, Kakashi," Obito told his longtime friend and teammate. "You've taught kids before, right? Do you have any tips to stave of the boredom?"

"I _trained_ Anbu recruits, not teach a bunch of genin from the ground up. There's a difference," Kakashi pointed out while taking a drink from his sake cup.

Obito's eyes darted up to try and get a glimpse of what was under Kakashi's mask, but the silver-haired jonin was too fast. Obito swore at another failed attempt to discover the mystery that was Kakashi's face. "Bah. Training ninja, teaching kids, what's the difference?"

Kakashi raised a hand and began to list the differences on his fingers, "One group is one person, already has the groundwork of a fighting style, missions experience, combat experience, several tricks, a framework of their abilities, and most likely have already dealt with some of the dirtier aspects of the job? The other has only basic academy knowledge, little training, is working with a group of people they've probably barely interacted with before, and you have your attention split between three different personalities and skill levels that you need to improve at the same time so that the team doesn't have any weak links." He shrugged his shoulders while Obito glared at him. "Personally, I believe that if I got stuck with a genin team I'd either train them into the ground and cause them to burnout or barely do anything with them in the hope that they become career genin."

Obito grimaced at the thought, but knew that Kakashi was right. Ever since they were kids he had been an elite. Setting the record for making chunin without his devil fruit and then making jonin record after he ate it. The thought of Kakashi—who had spent most of his life in the Anbu—trying to deal with prepubescent kids made him cringe. That couldn't possibly end well. This was a man who decided that lazing around, reading porn in public, annoying high-ranking ninja, and training with Might Gai during his off time was an effective coping method. Really not the best example for a well-adjusted jonin.

"Fair point," Obito conceded before taking a drink and refilling the saucers.

"How are the kids coming along anyways?" Kakashi asked. "You've got Sasuke, Naruto, and…" he waved his hand in the air absently, apparently unable to remember the last one.

Obito wasn't fooled. He knew that Kakashi knew every single member of Konoha's forces and a good portion of those from the other villages. The man across from him earned his spot as the deadliest member of the Anbu forces for a reason. This was just another one of his games. The man always went on about looking underneath the underneath, so it wasn't surprising that he preferred to hide things another three layers deeper than that. Still, he'd play along as always. "Haruno Sakura. Civilian girl that scored the highest out of the non-clan kids in the class. She's coming along quite well. She's really getting into the whole ninja lifestyle and is adjusting surprisingly well. Even did better than Naruto with the Tora mission today."

Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow, "Oh? The Tora mission already. And Naruto didn't do that well on it. That's surprising."

Obito waggled his hand side to side, "Not so much that he was bad—he was actually doing really well with tracking down that damned cat—he just ran into Kurenai's team while they were walking the dogs and…"

Kakashi held up his hand, "Say no more. I remember what happened when he ran into my dogs." That hadn't gone well. Naruto had been covered in scratches and bruises for two weeks. But it was interesting that they had managed to do well on the Tora mission with only a few weeks of training. Kakashi leaned in a little closer, "What are you planning?"

Obito gave a quick glance around before speaking, "I'm thinking of taking them on a missions outside the village." He quickly waved off any objection Kakashi could raise, "Nothing major! Just a simple mission that'd get them some field experience. Sasuke and Naruto are getting antsy and Sakura is good enough for it now. I'm thinking something like an escort mission or maybe town defense. Give them a chance to see some of the world and maybe get in a fight with bandits or something. Have them experience their first kill in a controlled environment, something simple to work with. I'm thinking that it'll either make or break Sakura as well. Better to learn early rather than put more effort into her just to learn that she can't hack it later."

"Her family have history?" Kakashi asked.

Obito nodded, "Dad. Part of one of the extra civvie teams. First combat experience he froze up and ended up costing the team the mission and ruined his hand. He was too injured and untrained to join the reserves or the police so he was discharged and took up the family trade."

Kakashi gave a noncommittal hum, "How are you planning on finding such a mission? It's not like you can just read through every C-rank mission that Konoha receives."

"Rin's helping me. She's promised that if she found a promising mission she'd pass it along to me instead of putting it into circulation," Obito told him with a grin.

"Ah, the benefits of having the Hokage's secretary as your wife," Kakashi said drily.

"What about the Hokage's secretary?" a new voice asked. Both men looked up as Rin slid into the empty seat between them. "Hope I'm not too late."

"Nah, we've barely even gotten started," Obito told her before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek in greeting. "I was just telling Kakashi about that mission I'm looking for."

"Well isn't that a coincidence. I just found it," Rin grinned at the look that flashed in Obito's eyes. He really was feeling cooped up in here. She pulled a mission scroll out from a hip pouch. "Here you go. It's a simple escort mission for an old bridge builder. His home country is under lockdown by a man named Gato and he needs protection from his thugs until he can finish building a bridge. Bunch of bandits and bar bouncers. Shouldn't be a problem."

"This is perfect, Rin. You're amazing," Obito told her before taking the scroll to begin reading it. "Where's this old guy from?"

Rin rolled her eyes at Obito's impatience. It said so in the scroll if he just took ten seconds to read it, but she told him anyways.

"Wave Country."

* * *

 **Next Day**

When Team Seven arrived at the Hokage Tower, they were surprised to find Obito waiting for them. "You guys sure took your time," he teased.

The trio glared at him, "You're here early. Who are you and what have you done with Obito-sensei?" Naruto demanded.

Obito ignored Naruto's question. "I'm here because today we have a special mission," he told them. Some of his excitement at leaving the village for a mission slipping in. He loved it and all, but damn he was feeling the cabin fever. He needed something to do.

Dead eyes continued to glare at Obito. There was nothing special about any of the "missions" they had been on. "Do we get to help babysit a couple of brats?" Sasuke asked without any enthusiasm.

"Or helping an old lady with her shopping?" Naruto chimed in.

"Don't be ridiculous, Obito-sensei probably already took care of that," Sakura said. "It's probably more potato farming."

Obito gave an annoyed cough to gain their attention. "It's none of those things. Today we're going to get a C-rank mission. But I suppose if you guys want to do those other things I can see what they have…" Obito taunted. His genin didn't disappoint and the man soon found himself nearly bowled over and bombarded with protests against the dreaded D-rank missions. "All right. All right. Enough." Obito wait for them to settle down before explaining the details, "It's an escort and protection mission that'll take us to Wave Country. We'll be escorting a bridge builder named Tazuna to a village in Wave Country and then protect him while he finishes building a bridge. The mission will take about a month, so pack accordingly. Meet at the gates in thirty minutes. Dismissed."

The genin nodded and then took off to their homes at top speed, eager to pack and prepare for their first C-rank mission. Obito smiled in amusement and headed to the gates while reminiscing on his own team's first C-rank. He'd wait for them there and hopefully could talk to their client in the meantime. Then something important caught Obito's attention.

"Oh, miss. Do you need help with those bags?"

* * *

 **Konoha Gates**

An old man stood by the gates drinking alcohol straight from the bottle. He had a gray goatee and hair under a pointed wide-brimmed hat, dark clothes, and a towel around his neck. The old man examined Obito for a moment, "Only one person?"

"I'm a jonin and my genin team will be here shortly," Obito said with false cheer. He could tell that this was going to be one of _those_ clients. Oh well, it would be good experience for the kids to learn how to deal with difficult clients. And speak of the devils. "Right on time," Obito greeted the genin. They all had packs on their backs of various sizes. Naruto's seemed to have a multitude of spiked objects and wire crammed into his, Sakura's was larger than the boys, but she apparently was under less strain, and Sasuke's had a set of bedrolls and some cooking implements. Obito was impressed. He didn't even know that they had already divided up the needed supplies between the three of them. Usually that was something that genin had to be taught and he had planned on going over that while they were setting up camp for the night. But which one of them had come up with the idea?

"Okay, Team Seven. This is Tazuna. Tazuna, this is my genin team," Obito introduced.

Tazuna ran a critical eye over the kids. "They're a bunch of brats. Are they really ninja?" he asked.

The genin bristled at his insult, but Obito's raised hand made them hold their tongues. "I can assure you that they are all very capable ninja and could easily kill you before you could blink. They'll be more than enough to handle your thug problem. And if they can't, I will." He let a little bit of his killing intent leak into his words.

Tazuna was slightly cowed by Obito's words and tone, but he wasn't willing to let the younger man have the last word, "For all the money Wave's paying they better be." He began to walk out of the village only to run into an invisible wall. Tazuna grabbed his nose in pain and glared at the seemingly empty space in front of him, "What in the hell?"

"You can't leave until you talk to the gatekeepers," Obito informed him while walking over to the small booth next to the gates. "Jonin Uchiha Obito and genin Team Seven escorting a client." He held up the mission scroll to the two men in the booth.

Both the men were wearing the Konoha uniforms that marked them as at least chunin. The one with brown hair over his right eye and his forehead protector sewn on a bandana took the scroll and examined it. "Alright, you guys are good." The man reached down and pulled out a backpack, "Here's your pack, Obito-san. Good luck on your mission kids."

The man with spiky black hair, a bandage over the bridge of his nose, and a small marking on his chin waved at them. "Try not to die on your first mission," he jokingly advised. The chunin then uncrossed his fingers and they were allowed to leave the village. After they were passed the gates, the man recrossed his fingers and went back to slouching.

Once he was sure they were out of earshot, Tazuna turned to Obito. "What the hell was that?" he asked.

Obito raised an eyebrow at him, "The gatekeepers. You had to pass them when you were making the mission request so I don't see why you're surprised."

"Yes, but that was to get _into_ the village, not out of it. Why would you need to stop people from leaving? And what the hell did I run into?"

Something in Obito's eyes hardened, "Not everything that wants to leave the village is harmless. We're shinobi, we tend to steal things that others don't want us to know about. Kotetsu and Izumo are just a one of the precautions that the Hokage put in place to prevent that. As for what you ran into; that was Kotetsu's barrier. No one gets in or out of the gates unless he lets them."

Tazuna still grumbled a bit and rubbed his nose, but let the matter drop. It didn't really matter to him anyways, but it seemed like the rumors about ninja being able to use magic powers were true. The question was, what could the group he hired do? Hopefully they'd be strong enough to stand up against Gato.

* * *

 **Several Days Later**

The mission had been relatively easy so far. Itachi apparently gave Sasuke advice on what to pack and how to organize for long-term missions and he had passed that on to his teammates. A quick inspection showed that Itachi had also apparently told Sasuke how to pack Anbu-style with all of the useful odds and ends crammed into their bags. Other than the inspection on the first night, Team Seven had just walked in a loose formation around Tazuna on the way to Wave Country. Naruto had set snares to catch small animals that they ate on the way to conserve supplies and the shinobi set up a system of watch that went Sasuke, Naruto, Obito, Sakura. No bandits had tried to attack them and they hadn't seen another soul while traveling. During this time, the excitement of leaving the village and going on a C-rank mission had worn off and the genin were bored.

"This sucks," Naruto griped. "How much farther until we reach that shipping town?"

Sakura pulled out a map and plotted their course. "We aren't that far away from it. If we keep up our current pace we should reach it before nightfall," she reported.

"Perfect. We'll reserve a ship to carry us to Wave Country in the morning and spend the night in an inn," Obito said.

"No," Tazuna grouchily said. He had run out of alcohol two days ago and his mood had been sinking since.

"Why not?" Obito suspiciously asked. Had their client left something out of the mission's description? Why couldn't they hire transportation?

"Gato's men have the town locked down. No one gets in or out of Wave Country without his approval. Since I haven't exactly appealed myself to him, there's no way that we'll get passage to Wave Country," Tazuna explained.

"You got across. How'd you do it?" Obito demanded.

"Gato was glad to see me gone. Probably thought I skipped town after my son-in-law was killed. He was glad to see me leave, but he'll try to kill me when he learns I'm back."

"Then how did you expect to get back into Wave after you left?" Obito asked. That seemed like poor planning from a bridge builder.

"By hiring a team of ninja to take care of Gato's goons."

Obito stopped walking and sighed. Just what they needed. The others looked at him curiously. He motioned for them to rest. "We're taking our break here and use the time to plan."

"Plan what, Sensei?" Sakura asked. Besides her, Naruto and Sasuke shook their heads. They knew that he was waiting for someone to ask that. Obito had always had a thing for dramatics.

"Plan to steal a boat to Wave Country."

* * *

 **That Night**

Several men were scattered around the pier to keep an eye on the ships. They didn't know why Gato insisted on posting guards all over the place at night. What was a sleepy town like this going to do, night fishing? Any smugglers in town had already been part of Gato's operation so they weren't going to do anything. But they weren't paid to ask questions, they were paid to stand around and look dangerous in the middle of the night instead of sleeping.

"Go."

One of the guards lazily scanned the pier for what seemed like the hundredth time that night when he noticed something off. There appeared to be a small burning flame floating near one of the boats. He rubbed his eyes and then pricked his finger on his sword to ensure that he was awake. Seeing that the flame was still there, he got the attention of one of his fellow guards that was stationed near him. "Hey, do you see a floating flame over there?"

The other guard turned around and looked to where the first guard was pointing. He noticed the flame and nodded, "That little blue one? Yeah, I see it."

"I'm going to go check it out. Watch my back."

The second guard waved his hand in acknowledgement and watched as the guard began to approach the flame. While he was watching, one of the lanterns began to sputter and then died. He cursed. It must have run out of oil. He checked the other guard's progress and then made his way over to the lantern. He didn't notice when a noose made of ninja wire was lowered over the edge of one of the shacks that lined the pier and walked right into it. He felt a tug around his neck and reached up to grab the line, but before he could touch it a shadowed figure dropped over the side of the shack and the wire was pulled taunt over a protrusion on the roof. The guard was dragged off of his feet and began to choke as his air was cut off. He tried to get his fingers under the wire, but it was cutting into his skin and he could feel the wound bleeding. His hands grabbed for his knife, but a foot kicked it out of his grasp. Eventually the man went slack and stopped moving.

Sasuke didn't move from where he was hanging behind the man's corpse on the other end of the wire. He waited a few more seconds to ensure that the guard was dead before signaling for Sakura. She came out from her hiding spot and used the sign language taught in the Academy to signal the all clear to Sasuke. He signed back awkwardly with one hand and she went under him and grabbed the sack he was tied to. Sasuke cut the rope and then Sakura went under the guard's body and braced herself before nodding. Sasuke let go of the kunai the wire was tied to and rushed to help Sakura support the man's body. They moved it off to the shadows and Sasuke quickly retrieved the kunai and wire noose. They weren't supposed to leave any evidence behind. The two then settled in to wait for Naruto to signal that his guard was taken care of.

* * *

The first guard made his way over to the flame. He wasn't in any hurry, secure in the belief that the townspeople were all thoroughly cowed by Gato's threats. He was mainly investigation because the night shift was so boring. As he got closer to the boat he noticed that the flame was actually over the water instead of on the boat like he originally thought. He approached the flame, but once he got within five feet of it, the flame began to move. At first the guard was suspicious and he leveled his spear at it. After it didn't make any more movements, he hesitantly approached it again only for it to remain out of reach. Seeing that the flame wasn't dangerous, the guard began to test it. He discovered that the flame always remained out of reach if he tried to get within five feet of it. The guard continued to chase the flame, caught in its hypnotic glow. He didn't even notice the figure approaching him from behind. Suddenly, the flame stopped moving and floated to the ground. The guard didn't hesitate to crouch down and examine the flame that had been distracting him. This allowed the figure behind him to easily slip up next to him and bury a kunai in his throat.

The guard let out a strangled gurgle and clutched at his throat in an attempt to stem the blood flow, but it was too late. He was slowly lowered the rest of the way to the ground to avoid making any noise and the figure collapsed next to him. Naruto panted heavily and wiped at the sweat pouring off his brow. That had been the hardest use of his powers he had ever tried. Controlling his _Foxfire_ and casting an illusion over the other guards was pretty draining. Fortunately, it had been a static illusion on just their hearing and sight. He wouldn't have been able to keep it up if the guards mad moved. Naruto sent the flame back into the air and had it flicker seven times before dropping it and the illusions. Now all he had to do was wait for the others to show up. He hoped they'd show up soon, his entire body ached and he wasn't going to be able to move the body himself. Until then, he'd just lean back against this post and catch his breath.

Sakura and Sasuke both saw Naruto's signal and went into action. Sakura had already stripped the guard of anything useful and had thrown anything else into the water. Between the two of them they carried the body to Naruto's location without getting caught. When they arrived, they found Naruto slumped up against a post with his head down. Sakura gasped in shock and dropped her end of the body. It made a dull thud and both genin froze with their hearts stuck in their throats. Once it became clear that no one was coming to investigate, they hesitantly approached Naruto. Sasuke was the closest and he relaxed after getting a better look at Naruto. He eased the body down and signaled to Sakura that all was fine. He then picked up the guard's spear and poked Naruto with the butt.

No response.

Sasuke frowned. He could see Naruto's chest rising and faintly hear his breathing so he was still alive. Why wasn't he reacting? Sasuke knew that Naruto had been trained to wake up at even the slightest provocation like himself. What was wrong with him? Was he drugged?

Before Sasuke's mind could begin to imagine everything that could possibly be wrong with his friend, a soft two-note whistle came from behind him. Even though he recognized the signal, the Uchiha couldn't repress a flinch at being snuck up on so easily. Sasuke turned around to see Obito behind him and Sakura. The jonin was carrying another body and he placed it into the boat they were stealing before motioning for Sasuke to help Sakura put in theirs. He complied after Obito signaled that he'd examine Naruto.

Obito went over to Naruto and checked his vitals out of view of the other two just in case. There was nothing wrong with him and Obito concluded that his initial assumption that Naruto overused his powers and exhausted himself was correct. He placed the body into the boat and motioned for Sakura to start stripping it of anything of value and for Sasuke to bring in Naruto, but swapped the order when he noticed Sakura's trepidation at the sight of so much blood. The pinkette shot him a relieved look while she helped Naruto into the boat. Obito quickly phased the boat through its moorings and the Konoha ninja silently left the pier to pick up Tazuna.

* * *

 **Wave Country Coast**

Obito killed the engine and pulled up a rowing oar so that they could silently enter the country. They had left Fire Country's coast two days ago after picking up Tazuna and dumped the guard's bodies far away from the town where they wouldn't be found. Naruto had taken most of the night and day to recover and once he had he was unusually silent. Sasuke was as well, and Obito decided to talk to them about their first kill that night. He had been slightly surprised to learn that both of them had already had the "Kill Talk" with their parents and were just having trouble with the reality of it. The most he could offer was to reinforce the idea of killing them as a necessity and how it protected their teammates and clients before giving them time to think about it. He still remembered his first kill and it was never a good experience, but it was a necessary one and one of the reasons that he had brought them on this mission. Sakura was the only one left on the team without a kill and he hoped that when she did kill it was during a fight when she was high on adrenaline and he'd have time to talk to her about it afterwards, before the full extent of what she had done caught up with her.

Under Tazuna's directions, Obito was able to silently slide the boat into the little fishing village. They all exited the boat and Obito had Sasuke set it aflame before sending it drifting back into the ocean. There would be no chance of anyone finding and reporting the missing boat and they wouldn't need it after the mission was completed since the bridge will have been built.

Obito watched his genin try not to stare and stay on task. This was probably the first time any of them had been to another village and it was both exciting and depressing. The stalls were all dilapidated and grossly overpriced. The people were wearing shoddy clothes that were closer to rags and many of them were either begging or offering to take any job. It wasn't the best first impression for them. Obito walked up to Tazuna, "Where do you live?"

The old man was watching the villagers with a sad look in his eyes and was jerked out of his thoughts by Obito's voice. He gave a slight shake of his head before speaking, "This way. I live with my daughter and grandson outside of the village. We have plenty of room and you can stay there at night. I'll start getting word out to the workers that I'm back and brought your four for protection and we'll probably be able to start work in a day or two."

Obito nodded and the five began to make their way through the crowd. Tazuna would occasionally stop and talk to certain people, greeting them and spreading the news of the bridge's continuation. However, instead of happily greeting the man that was supposed to give them new hope, several villagers refused to meet his eyes and mumbled their greetings. As this continued, Tazuna began to grow agitated. He kept repeating "something's wrong" under his breath and his conversations began to get harsher and shorter. Eventually, they came across a man willing to give them a straight answer.

"I'm sorry, Tazuna. I'm so very sorry," a man named Giichi told him from his spot on a barstool. There were already two empty bottles around his spot.

"What happened Giichi? No one's willing to look me in the eyes or give me a straight answer. What happened while I was gone?" Tazuna demanded.

Giichi finished his third bottle before speaking, "Gato decided that he wasn't satisfied that you had left Wave Country. He figured that there was a chance you'd come back. He sent his two best thugs to your house to take Tsunami hostage." Tazuna's blood ran cold and he froze while Giichi continued talking, "From what we can tell, Inari must have been home and heard the men break in and went down to see what the noise was." He reached out and grabbed Tazuna's shoulder, "I'm so sorry, Tazuna. We didn't find out until we noticed that Tsunami wasn't coming to buy food and…" he trailed off, unsure of what to say. "Gato made an announcement after we found out that he had taken Tsunami. Said that if you came back to tell you what had happened and that he'd let her go in exchange for you."

Obito noticed Tazuna swaying and quickly grabbed him before he collapsed. He helped the man onto a barstool and grit his teeth when he saw the look of devastation on his face. He seemed to have aged another fifty years after hearing the news about his family. Obito couldn't blame him. His own fists were clenched so hard that he could feel his nails through his gloves. A look at his students showed him that Naruto and Sakura were openly crying and Sasuke was fighting back tears while flames danced through his hair and his hands were making the countertop smoke.

"…where?" Tazuna finally asked through his tears.

"We buried Inari next to his father. As for Tsunami, Gato's got her at his place. All you've got to do is knock on the door," Giichi told him.

Tazuna took a deep breath and got to his feet. "If you go there he'll kill you," Giichi called out while he was leaving.

"Better me than her," was the gruff response.

"Tazuna-san, wait," Obito called after their client.

"What?" Tazuna demanded while turning to glare at the younger man. "Are you going to try and stop me from saving my daughter? Forget it," he reached into one of his pockets and shoved some money into Obito's chest. "Here's your pay. Now leave."

Tazuna tried to leave, but Obito grabbed his shoulder in an iron grip, "We can't do that yet, Tazuna-san. Our mission is to protect you while you until your bridge is done. If you're going to go off and try to get yourself killed, then we'll simply have to stop you from getting killed."

"How? I won't do anything until I'm sure Tsunami's safe. You can keep me from going to Gato's, but you can't make me work," he stubbornly said.

"In that case we'll just have to save your daughter then."

Obito's words stopped Tazuna cold. He looked at the man standing in front of him and the three kids behind him. All of them had the same determined look on their faces. He didn't understand why. These people barely knew him and he had been nothing but a drunken ass for most of that time. Why were they going so far? But who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? "Thank you," Tazuna sobbed as fresh tears began to flow down his face. "Thank you so much."

"It's our job," Obito told him. The jonin turned to his genin, "Naruto, Sasuke, you remember those stories I used to tell you about saving princesses when you were kids?"

"You mean the ones that Kakashi-oji would always interrupt to correct the details?" Naruto asked.

"Yes," Obito said through gritted teeth. Did he have to bring that up now? "Would you three like to try rescuing a princess?"

Naruto looked between Sasuke's stoic face with fire in his eyes and Sakura's furious expression that he was sure matched his own before answering for all of them.

"Hell yeah."

* * *

 **A/N: Done. This took forever to do because I moved into college this month. I'm done now and will hopefully try to finish chapters for my other fics. As for this one, yes, I killed Inari. Gato doesn't have Zabuza and Haku to fall back on here, so he decided for more drastic measures and Naruto wasn't around to save him this time. So next chapter Team Seven will raid Gato's base. Until then, later.**


	4. Chapter 4: One Way to Skin a Cat

**Fruits of War**

 **Chapter 4: One Way to Skin a Cat**

"Talking"

'Thinking'

Devil Fruit

 **Location/Time Change**

* * *

 **Gato's Mansion**

Obito silently drummed his fingers on the binoculars he was using to scout out Gato's mansion. Tazuna hadn't been kidding when he said that Gato had an army. Obito counted multiple four-man patrols walking around and that was just outside. Sasuke also had reported that there were similar patrols on his side. They were all overlapping and at least one man was watching behind them at all times. Gato wasn't taking any chances with his security. Obito had also seen a man that he assumed was from the village show up around half an hour ago. He was probably reporting Tazuna's return, along with his four companions that were wearing Konoha symbols. Fantastic.

"Sasuke, report." Obito said into his earpiece.

"Nothing new over here. Do you want me to get a look inside? I can see a chimney," the genin replied.

Obito thought about it for a moment before deciding against it. "Too risky. We're falling back to meet up with the others," he ordered. Obito stashed his binoculars back into his pack and silently dropped down to the ground. He made his way through the trees surrounding Gato's place with an ease only found in those that had grown up around a forest. He quickly met up with Sasuke and the two of them made their way back to Tazuna's place.

Obito rapped on the door in the pre-decided knock and waited a moment. Naruto's voice came through the door, "Password?"

"Will of fire."

There was the sound of a lock being removed and then the door opened a crack to reveal a blue eye. Satisfied with what he was seeing, Naruto swung the door open the rest of the way. "Welcome back. Any luck."

"About as much as Tsunade-sama's," Obito replied while the Uchihas walked inside. He shot a curious glance back to Sakura, who was holding a crossbow and coming out from behind makeshift cover. "Nice crossbow. Where'd you find it?"

"It was in one of the rooms we searched. I figured that it might be helpful," Sakura said while hefting the weapon on her back. "We put the rest of the stuff we found on the kitchen table."

Obito gave her a proud smile, "Good. Where's Tazuna?"

Sakura grimaced, "Under the table."

Obito ran a hand through his hair. There wasn't much he could do about that. The man's grandson was dead and his daughter was kidnapped by a tyrannical merchant that was putting the economic squeeze on his home country. It was expected that he had upped his drinking. Obito motioned for everyone to meet in the kitchen so that they could go over their plan.

Set out on the table was a variety of possibly useful items that Sakura and Naruto had found lying around the house while they had been guarding Tazuna. There was fishing line, several knives, some hooks, a large net, and a pair of fishing rods. Also, all the booze that Tazuna hadn't managed to consume, but Obito wasn't willing to count on it being around for long after the man woke up. It wasn't much, but they could work with it. From their own supplies were the standard caltrops, kunai, and shuriken carried by all ninja along with a pair of fuma shuriken, some bear traps that Naruto had brought, flares, ninja wire, senbon, and smoke bombs. Sage, how had Naruto managed to pack all of that into his bag? Obito pushed enough of the weapons to the side to clear enough space to sketch out a rough estimate of Gato's mansion. "This is Gato's place. He's got a patrol of four men on each side of the house that are watching each other's backs from all sides and a small army of mercs inside the mansion."

"We also saw a man from the village go into the mansion, so Gato probably knows that we're here," Sasuke added.

Naruto let out an impressed whistle and Sakura swallowed nervously. That was a lot of guys to fight. "So where's Tsunami-san at?" Sakura asked.

"No idea. We couldn't get a closer look without risking setting off the guards," Obito answered. "We're probably only going to get one shot at this. Until we reveal ourselves, Tazuna can claim that he sent us back to Konoha after learning about Tsunami."

"Will that work?"

"If it doesn't then Tsunami's dead and the mission's a bust," Obito bluntly stated. No point in beating around the bush. "Of course, we won't know that our client will refuse to work on the bridge until after Gato's dead," he said after seeing the looks on his team's faces. Ever since they had found a picture of Inari there had been a fire lit inside them to make Gato pay for what he did. Knowing that someone only a few years younger than you had been unjustly killed tended to do that at their age. Even when you got older it didn't go away, just changed from 'a fewer years younger' to 'that young'. No matter how this mission went, Gato was dead. It may not have been professional, but what Minato-sensei didn't know he couldn't punish you for.

"So how are we going to do this?" Naruto asked.

"Very, very carefully," Obito told them. "We don't know where Tsunami is, the layout of Gato's mansion, or what his total manpower is. With an army of mercs that large there should be at least one Devil Fruit user in the batch and with Gato's money there's a good chance that there'll be more than that. In case we do run into some Devil Fruit users take these," Obito reached into one of his vest pockets and brought out three kunai. "I was going to save them as a reward for completing your first C-rank mission but now is more appropriate." He passed them around. "These are seastone-edged blades. Hardest stuff in the world. The edges won't dull and they'll cut any crazy Devil Fruit power you guys come across."

The three genin stared at the kunai. Seastone wasn't cheap, and even to get three kunai edged in the stuff must have cost Obito a hefty sum. The three carefully picked up the weapons and examined them. Sasuke and Naruto were extra careful to keep the blade from touching them. They had experienced the effects of seastone before and it wasn't pleasant. The three thanked Obito for the gift and stored the kunai in a different pocket than their usual kunai so they wouldn't mix them up.

Satisfied by his team's reactions to his gift, Obito continued, "I only see one option here and it sucks." Obito ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He really didn't like this plan. "We're going to do a snatch-and-grab then lead them into a briar patch."

The genin looked at Obito in surprise. They were expecting something a little more complicated than a simple plan like that. Then he began to explain his plan and they started to wish that the plan was a lot more complicated.

* * *

Tazuna nervously took a swig from his bottle. After he had woken up from his drunken stupor, Obito had explained the plan to him. He didn't like the plan, but it was the only way that the ninja he had hired were going to try to rescue his daughter. He glanced at the "man" walking beside him. It was a very convincing image of a young man from the village with a scar across his nose, but Tazuna knew better. If he tried to touch the man his hand would go right thought anything above his stomach. There was supposed to be another one of the kids behind him and the other one had gone ahead with their leader. He was essentially alone, walking to Gato's place. They were getting within view of Gato's place now. Tazuna finished off his bottle and put it away. It hadn't been bad for what was probably his last drink.

The two stopped at the edge of Gato's property and waited a moment. The doors to Gato's mansion opened and the man walked out while flanked by two bodyguards. Tazuna's teeth clenched at the sight of them. One of them was responsible for his son's death and the short weasel in front of them ordered them to do it. He made to take a step forward only for a hand to block his way. He glanced over at the illusion next to him and glared at where he knew the brat's head to be. "Stick to the plan," he was warned. If he didn't remain calm then Tsunami was dead. Tazuna clenched even harder, but stepped back. The ninja knew what they were doing.

"I'm here, Gato! Now where's my daughter?!" he yelled across the yard.

"Hello, Tazuna," Gato's sleazy voice replied as if they were having a cup of tea. "I'm so glad that you decided to come back to your hometown. But where are the friends you brought with you?"

"I fired them when I heard your deal. They won't be a problem," Tazuna easily answered. He had been briefed on what to say by Obito before he left.

"Then what about the man next to you? I don't recall telling you to bring company."

"I brought him to make sure that my daughter got back safely. Can you blame me for not trusting you?" Tazuna's voice hardened, "Now show her to me or I'm heading back to build my bridge."

Gato snapped his fingers to the guard on his right. He disappeared back into the mansion before reappearing while dragging a young woman with long blue hair. She had several visible scratches and bruises, but nothing serious that could be seen. "You know the deal. She goes free in exchange for you."

Naruto nudged Tazuna's side. "I want to make sure that she's okay first," Tazuna said.

Gato snorted. He grabbed Tsunami's shoulder and shoved her forward. "Say something to daddy, girl. Let him know you're all right."

Tsunami lifted her head to look at her father. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying and there were clear tear tracts down her cheeks where the dirt had been washed away. She began to cry when she saw him. "I'm… sorry, Dad. But Wave needs you." She then turned and attempted to stab the guard holding her with a sharp rock.

Time seemed to slow down for Tazuna. He didn't notice Naruto dropping the illusion next to him and shoving him backwards. He didn't hear him yelling the code word for if something went wrong. He couldn't even feel himself dropping to his knees or the tears running down his cheeks. All he could do was watch as the guard drew his sword and made to cut his daughter down. Just like his son-in-law. Just like his grandson.

Then the guard was missing his head and Tsunami wasn't dead. Obito had rushed out of the mansion with a strange weapon that looked like two sickles attached with a chain and killed the guard that was going to kill his girl. Now his girl was in the shinobi's arms and he was running towards them as a pair of fireballs were thrown at Gato. The pink-haired girl was besides Tazuna with an empty crossbow and yelling something while pulling on his shoulder, but he didn't pay her any mind. His daughter was safe and that was all that mattered to him.

* * *

"You've got to fall back!" Sakura was screaming at Tazuna, but the man wasn't responding. She tried pulling him back, but he weighed too much and she wasn't strong enough to do more than get him to bend backwards a bit. She gave it up as a lost cause and looked back at the mansion in time for all of the windows to blow out in a wave of fire and a torrent of flames in the shape of a fist burst through the front of the mansion. A wave of heat rolled over the ninja and guards outside and they momentarily stopped to watch Gato's house get engulfed in flames.

Except for Obito. The jonin had seen more impressive things than a logia user taking out a mansion and had been expecting the blast since he was the one that ordered it in. He didn't stop moving. He saw Naruto in his hybrid form with his hands over his face to protect him from the heat and yelled at him without breaking stride, "Fall back!" Obito was confident that he would listen to him and began to run faster. The whole plan had gone to straight to Hell when Tsunami decided she wanted to have a noble sacrifice. What did she think was going to happen after Gato's goons killed her? Her aging, out-of-shape father was going to outrun trained samurai and build his bridge? She had seen how many people Gato had in that mansion. It would be generous to give Tazuna two days.

"Sakura, help Naruto with Tsunami. I'll take Tazuna and we'll meet back up with Sasuke at their house," Obito ordered while setting the woman back on her feet. He hefted Tazuna to his feet and started to push him along. He took a glance back to check on Gato and his men, but found Naruto in the middle of fighting both guards and losing.

Obito didn't waste time wondering how the one man had survived his attack or why Naruto hadn't listened to him. He just told Sakura to protect their client and rushed back at the men attacking his student, the chain of his kusarigama clinking behind him.

The two guards were obvious Devil Fruit users. Obito knew that he had cut off the one wearing a hat and jacket's head when he had rescued Tsunami and the shirtless one with the tattoos and eyepatch was summoning plants covered in thorns out of the ground in an attempt to immobilize Naruto. The blonde genin was doing decent against his two opponents, but Obito could see the blood staining Naruto's clothes. The only reason he had probably lasted so long was because he kept throwing fireballs at the pair to keep them at bay. Each fireball drained him though and Naruto wouldn't be able to hold out forever.

Obito threw one of his blades to prevent the hat wearer from getting too close to Naruto. He moved to stand besides Naruto and nearly got clawed in the process. Naruto looked at Obito in surprise. "Obito-sensei?!" he shouted much louder than necessary. "I can't hear!"

Naruto had been in his hybrid form when the mansion had exploded in a fireball and it had left a ringing noise that hadn't gone away. He didn't get a chance to get it checked out before the two guards had attacked him. They weren't that great of fighters, but he couldn't hear what was going on and the ringing would distract him and he'd end up getting cut. Luckily, there hadn't been anything major, but it had come close too many times for Naruto's liking. The fireballs he had been throwing around might have been helpful short term, but he could feel his strength draining with each one. It was fortunate that Obito had come back to help him when he did. "What do we do now?!" Naruto yelled at Obito. The jonin went through a series of hand signs that Naruto had been taught in the academy before engaging his opponent.

Naruto shouted his comprehension and shifted into his full fox form. His opponent's blade passed through where his head had been and Naruto took off to the woods, leaving Obito alone with the two guards.

The eye-patched guard attempted to chase after Naruto only for one of Obito's blades to nearly remove his head. "Can't have you chasing after my student like that, can I?" Obito taunted. The guard snorted in frustration, but turned his attention back to the black-haired shinobi.

Obito grinned as he began to perform his deadly dance around the two guards. From their skill with a sword and possession of Devil Fruit he assumed that they were ex-members of the Land of Iron's samurai. If they were samurai then he might be able to get them to reveal their fruit's exact powers to him. Obito locked blades with both swords and kicked one man back before unlocking his second blade and ducking out of the way. Without Obito's resistance, the guard stumbled forward and left himself open to a kick that sent him crashing into his fellow guard.

"You know, you guys are pretty bad samurai," Obito casually stated, internally smirking at the way his opponents bristled at him. So they did still have a sense of honor. Perfect. "I mean, you haven't even introduced yourselves."

The two samurai irritably shot each other looks before they straightened up from their battle stances.

"My name is Zori. I ate the Bara-Bara no mi," the one with the hat said.

"My name is Waraji. I ate the Odoro-Odoro no mi," said the one with the eyepatch.

"That's a pretty fancy Devil Fruit you have there, Zori. Waraji, yours kinda sucks," Obito remarked, grinning at the way Waraji snarled at him.

"If you know what my Devil Fruit is then you know that you have no chance against me with those kusarigamas of yours," Zori confidently stated. "Why don't you give up and let us cut up that old geezer and his daughter?"

Zori and Waraji were experienced mercenaries and had gotten into plenty of fights with opponents that were confident in their strength in their time and had killed all of them, but they had never met a man with the audacity to laugh in their faces like Obito was. It wasn't a light chuckle either, the guy was busting a guy across from them and was bent over from lack of oxygen. There were even fucking _tears_ in the bastard's eyes!

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I forgot that I haven't introduced myself yet," Obito said after he managed to get his breath back. Suddenly, he was in front of them with a wicked grin and his blades were headed for their heads. "My name is Obito Uchiha, jonin of Konoha and the eater of the Mitsudo-Mitsudo no mi. Nice to meetcha."

Waraji and Zori's faces went white while they tried to keep them attached to their necks. They knew of Obito's reputation as 'Obito the Untouchable' from the bingo book. They weren't strong enough to take on an opponent at his level. Gato's money wasn't worth dying and there wasn't anyone around to spread the story of them bailing on a job. Waraji threw up a wall of thorns to cover their retreat and the two samurai took off for the hills.

Unfortunately for them, Naruto had snuck back around behind them instead of fleeing like they thought. The blonde shinobi announced his presence with a pair of fireballs to their faces. The samurai screamed in pain and pawed at their faces to try to put out the flames. Waraji didn't get long to try before Naruto stabbed him with his kunai. The older man's arms went slack and he slumped forward onto Naruto. The blond quickly let him fall to the side before his jacket ignited as well.

Zori had managed to catch most of the fireball on his hat and, after he removed it, put out the rest of the flames on his face. He glared daggers at Naruto, "You'll pay for that, you little bastard!" he roared in rage while drawing his sword. Naruto had turned to face him, but was unprepared for Zori's arm to detach and only managed to attempt a hasty block with his kunai. The sword cut through Naruto's side before the kunai could stop it and the genin hissed in pain. Suddenly, Naruto was put on the back foot as he tried to fight a floating sword that could attack him from all angles.

Zori watched from a safe distance with a smile on his face. "Dance, you little fuck, dance." Waraji had been Zori's partner since they had trained to be samurai in the Land of Iron. He had helped cut down the other guy in their squad after their leader had died and Zori had found his Devil Fruit in his backpack. He had been a great friend and this little shit would pay for killing him. He smirked as his sword outmaneuvered Naruto and slashed him across the back. The blonde was going to pay in blood.

Zori's body jerked and he felt a strange pain in his chest. He looked down and was surprised to see a solid black blade sticking out of his chest. He reached up to touch the blade before remembering that his arms weren't there. "Huh," he muttered in a daze while watching blood stain his jacket. Then the blade was ripped out of his chest and he fell on his back.

Obito flicked the blood off his blade and wrapped the chain up. He hadn't been happy with having to cut through the thicket thrown down by Waraji in the first place, and seeing Zori playing with Naruto hadn't improved his mood. He looked over to where Naruto was tentatively kicking the motionless arms on the ground in front of him. Satisfied that they weren't going to be moving anytime soon, he turned back to see Obito standing over Zori's corpse. "Naruto, can you hear me?" Obito hopefully asked.

"What?!"

Obito hung his head in defeat. Of course, things couldn't be that easy. He signed for Naruto to loot the bodies and head back to Sakura. Once he nodded in understanding, Obito turned to head to Gato's mansion and find the man in question. He had lost track of him in all the fighting.

* * *

Once he reached the front of the mansion's remains, Obito found a blood trail leading away from the burning building. It didn't take long to find Gato crawling his way across the ground with a cross bow bolt sticking out of his leg. Sakura must have shot him before the fighting started.

Gato looked up at Obito in fear. "H-help me. I can give you anything. Money? Women? Land? Whatever you want. I can double whatever that old man is paying. Triple it! Just don't let me die," Gato begged.

Obito looked down on him in contempt. Going by all the blood, the arrow had hit Gato's femoral artery. He was already dead.

Obito knelt down next to Gato and the man gave him an oily smile. "Yes, excellent. You take me to get healed and then we'll come back to make these peasants pay for this." Gato's enthusiasm died off when Obito didn't pick him up or even look at the wound. Instead he was… going through his pockets?! "What the hell is the meaning of this?! Help me, you bastard!"

Obito didn't even look in Gato's direction. "It's standard ninja procedure to loot a corpse after every fight if you have a chance," he casually said aloud while pulling out Gato's checkbook and wallet. "Just doing my job."

Gato began to scream curses at Obito and called him every name under the sun. The jonin took it in stride and finished checking Gato for anything of value. After snagging a nice gold watch that he could definitely sell for a good price, Obito stood up, brushed himself off, and left Gato screaming and bleeding in the dirt.

* * *

Obito stopped in front of the mansion and looked at it in concern. The fire was still blazing strongly and whatever valuable in there that hadn't been locked in a safe were a complete right off, but Sasuke still hadn't come out. Obito cupped his hands around his mouth, "Hey, Sasuke, you in there?!" He waited a few seconds, but got no response. Obito walked around the building to where Sasuke had gone in while cursing to himself. If his cousin had gotten hurt while on his first C-ranked mission he'd never forgive himself for the short time he would have left before Mikoto or Itachi killed him. Fugaku would never do it himself. As the clan head, he'd just put his severed head on a pike in front of the police station and outside his window so that he could watch Obito's head slowly rot.

There was a lot more damage to this side of the mansion and Obito carefully made his way through the smoldering debris. He found Sasuke sitting in the middle of the mansion with flames all around him and a faraway look in his eyes. "Hey, Sasuke," Obito cautiously called out in his calmest voice. The genin turned to face him, but wasn't looking at him. His stare was far beyond that. "What's wrong?"

"I killed them," Sasuke said in the faintest of whispers. "There were so many of them and they just _burned._ I can smell them burning, hear them screaming in pain. They didn't even see it coming and I wiped them out like that," Sasuke snapped his fingers to demonstrate. Tears began to flow down his face and wipe away the soot that was covering it. "That's crazy."

Obito had heard about things like this. Logia and some paramecia Devil Fruit eaters being overwhelmed by the scope of their own power. He needed to get Sasuke back to Konoha to talk with an adviser soon. "That's your power, Sasuke. With it you're one of the strongest ninja in the village right now." Sasuke was actually looking at him now and his eyes were scared. He needed to know that things were going to be okay. "What you just did was amazing. You saved Tazuna, Tsunami, Naruto, Sakura, and myself. You saved us _and_ you saved the mission." Obito walked up to Sasuke and put his hands on his shoulders. They were hot to the touch. "You killed people, yes, but you saved the important ones. Don't think about how many random thugs you killed, think about how many of your friends you saved. Your friends and comrades are more important than anyone else in the world. They're worth over a thousand grunts like that each. Now, want to go back and see your friends that you saved?"

Sasuke was still looking at Obito with big, scared eyes, but they weren't as bad as before. He hesitantly reached out a hand to Obito, "Yes."

"Good man," Obito told him while hauling him to his feet. He began to lead the way through the house. He'd be back to loot the place once the fire died out. Hopefully Gato kept his valuables in a fireproof safe.

* * *

 **A/N: Done. Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans and I guess happy Thursday to everyone else. I used Google translate for the words, so correct me if I'm wrong, but azami should mean thicket and mitsudo should mean density. That's it for now. PM me any questions as usual. Later.**


	5. Chapter 5: Burden of Power

**Fruits of War**

 **Chapter 5: Burden of Power**

 **A/N: Someone gave me a better word for thicket so I changed the fruit's name. It won't be important.**

"Talking"

'Thinking'

Devil Fruit

 **Location/Time Change**

* * *

 **Remains of Gato's Mansion**

Tazuna and Tsunami had been led back to their home by Sakura while the rest of Team Seven cleaned up the mess from their fight with Gato. Obito had assigned Sasuke to clean up all the traps they had left in the woods partly because of his immunity to them and mostly so that he wouldn't have to look at the destruction he had caused.

"What are we looking for here, Obito-sensei? Everything's burnt," Naruto asked as he picked his way through the house and carefully avoided looking at the corpses. The smell was pretty bad and he wasn't even transformed.

"Sasuke didn't burn the mansion down, just this part of it. Everything else will be fine, but we need to see if there's anything salvageable here," Obito told him. The burnt corpses weren't anything new to him and he was rummaging through the bodies. Any money they had on them would be useless, but they might have been carrying around a useful weapon or two. "If you find anything, throw it in a pile out front."

Naruto grimaced at having to get closer to the corpses, but followed the order. A pile of slightly burnt weapons began to build. Things with wooden shafts like spears or axes were useless, but the metal could be melted down by a blacksmith so they were added on. There were some armor pieces too, but neither shinobi was willing to see if the metal had fused to the wearer's skin.

Once they were done with that, they moved on to the parts of the mansion that weren't on fire. Naruto took the left and Obito took the right. There wasn't a lot there that was useful to them. Expensive paintings and pottery looked nice and all, but not really prime loot for people that spent their lives fighting and killing. The rooms were mostly full of things that civilians would find useful: art, books, furniture, clothes. Nothing useful.

Naruto kicked open the next door in frustration. If this was another goddamn study he was blaming Sasuke for what happened to the books regardless of how far away from the flames it was. Inside, he was greeted with the sight of a large four-poster bed with a picture of Gato hanging across from it. "Jackpot," he said with a foxy grin.

A quick search through the room became quite profitable as he found a lot of spare cash lying around, most of it stuffed into the mattress. There was a drawer devoted to some really gaudy jewelry that Naruto happily pocketed. Gold was gold. The real prize was a giant safe that was built into the wall. Gato hadn't spared any expense on this safe. Naruto remembered it from the safecracking class. It was filed under 'don't even bother trying.' It was the most advanced model that was offered and Gato must have had a support pillar for the mansion poured around it because there was no opening between it and the concrete. He turned on his earpiece, "Hey, Obito-sensei. I found a safe."

He waited for a response, but instead got Obito jumping through the wall and nearly giving him a heart attack. The jonin rolled his eyes as he caught the kunai Naruto had thrown at him. "A little jumpy, are we?"

"Sage of the Six Paths, don't do that! I nearly put a kunai in your skull!" Naruto said while clutching his chest. Was his heartrate supposed to feel like a hummingbird's? Was that normal?

Obito ignored him in favor of examining the safe. He let out a whistle, "Yeah, this is pretty heavy duty. You need a master safecracker to break this bad boy."

"So, can you crack it?"

Obito swept his hand out in a grandiose gesture. "Naruto, I am a jonin of Konoha, the greatest village in the Elemental Nations. I have completed more S-rank missions that you can count, I am a veteran of the Third Shinobi War, I managed to convince Rin Nohara to be my wife, I will be the Fifth Hokage after your dad retires, and you're asking me if I can crack a measly safe?" he dramatically finished.

"Yeah, yeah, you're so awesome. So, can you crack it or what?" Naruto asked with a bored expression. Obito must be hanging out with that strange guy in the green jumpsuit that was always loudly proclaiming things to Kakashi-oji too much. His mom warned him about that guy, said he was a bad influence on impressionable genin and that two of them was enough.

"Watch and learn," Obito said. He walked up to the safe and didn't even bother trying to crack it, he just pushed the safe backwards and it fell out of the pillar and crashed into something below. He grabbed all the papers, money, and expensive looking things that were left behind in a neat little safe-shaped opening. "Alright, I think that's it." Obito left the room and chose to ignore Naruto's mutter of "Paramecia bullshit" behind him. They still had to meet up with Sasuke and Sakura and divide up this loot.

Outside, Sasuke was waiting for them by a pile of their trapping supplies that was set up next to their weapons pile. Sakura had returned while they were looting the house and was poking at some of the stranger weapons on the pile. Obito raised a hand in greeting, "Yo."

Sasuke looked up from blankly staring at the ground and didn't react to them. He really had to get that kid to a shrink back in Konoha. He'd have to see about cutting the mission short with Tazuna. There shouldn't be any more issues with Gato dead.

"Hello, Obito-sensei," Sakura returned her greeting. "I dropped Tazuna and Tsunami off at the village doctor. Word was spreading pretty fast that Gato and his men are dead." She gestured to where their backpacks had been set aside. "I stopped off at his house to grab our bags, just in case."

"Good work, Sakura." Obito absently said. He figured that would happen. People would be crawling out of the woodwork to confirm and then they'd start looting the place. They weren't going to hang around for that. "Okay, kids, time to learn how to loot the bodies. First things first, you kill them you get first pick of their stuff. Naruto, you got Waraji so his stuff is yours." Naruto's eyes shined as he quickly lifted the guy's sword with a tad too wide grin. Oh well, that was Kushina's problem. Obito tossed a bag at Sakura, "Sakura, you actually killed Gato so that's yours. The rings might be a bit big though."

Sakura reflexively caught the bag in shock. Did she hear Obito-sensei right? "I killed Gato?"

"Yep, got his femoral artery. He bled out over there somewhere," Obito vaguely gestured to where he had left Gato. Best to keep Sakura distracted before the whole "I just killed a man" guilt set in. He didn't want her to have to deal with that in front of a bunch of villagers.

Sakura's brain had frozen up. She didn't know how she was supposed to react to that. Everything that the academy teachers had told her had slid right out of her head. "…I was aiming for his head," was all she was able to get out.

"Sasuke, you've got the pick of this stuff," Obito kicked the weapons pile. "See anything you like?"

Sasuke stared dully at the weapons. He didn't really need a weapon. The Mera-Mera no mi scroll hadn't shown any moves that incorporated weapons into its past users' styles. Even if he wanted a weapon, the Uchiha clan's armory had better things than a pile of junk from a bunch of mercenaries. Plus, he could see burns from his attack on most of those weapons. "I'm good."

Obito shrugged his shoulders. He figured as much. It was mostly cheap weapons except for the swords on Zori and Waraji. "Anyone else? No? Okay. Let's start packing this stuff up. We don't want some random villager cutting their hand off because we left a pointy stick lying around."

The genin quickly scrambled to pack everything they could into their bags. Most of the trapping supplies was stuffed into Naruto's bag with the rest going into Sakura's. Obito stuffed all the money, jewelry, and the stuff from the safe into some empty pockets on his vest that he kept in preparation for times like these. The weapons with intact sheaths were piled into his and Sasuke's bags with the stuff that was too big to fit or would punch a hole in the bags were tied to the outside. While they had been gathering things up, Sakura had opened the fruit pocket of her bag and found that her pineapple had changed. It had turned an orangish-red color and was covered in spirals. She called Obito over and showed him the Devil Fruit. The older man rubbed his chin as he looked it over. "I have no idea if this is the Bara-Bara no mi, Odoro-Odoro no mi, or if it's a completely different Devil Fruit from one of the mercenaries Sasuke killed. We'll check it out when we get back and find out who gets it then." He gave her the fruit back and then returned to cutting the heads off of the dead samurai. He had found them in the bingo book and, while the price on their heads were small, a bounty was a bounty.

When all was said and done, the four ninja looked like a walking armory and there was still a bunch of weapons lying around. They were custom things like a pair of weird blades that looked like they were strapped to the wielder's forearms or just too large to be worth carrying back like a great sword. The weapons were shoved into the ground point first and they just had to hope that the villagers weren't idiots. Hopefully their blacksmith was still alive and would take care of that.

Weighted down by their spoils, the ninja took off for Tazuna's house.

* * *

 **Konoha Gates**

Team Seven's spirits picked up as they saw Konoha's large gates appear down the path. Tazuna had been ecstatic over Gato and his thugs' deaths and had been more than willing to end the mission early. He no longer needed to be protected, so keeping them around would have been a waste. Tazuna and Tsunami thanked them profusely for saving their village and paid them before going to enjoy the celebrations. Once they were gone, Obito divided up the loot from the mission and looting. Fifteen percent went to Konoha, Obito got thirty percent, and the genin divide the remaining fifty-five among themselves. The jewelry and weapons would be dropped off at the Hokage Tower to be evaluated and they'd get a summons once that was done. Then they'd be allowed to decide among themselves who got what up to a certain amount based on what the pieces were evaluated at. Anything that they didn't want would stay with the village and they'd be compensated for the remaining portion of their percentage of the loot. The Devil Fruit Sakura found would be determined based off of the database that Konoha had established and given to the proper owner.

But that was a headache for later. First, Obito had to report to the Hokage, then drop Sasuke off at his house and explained to Fugaku and Mikoto why their youngest son needed to have a therapy session scheduled after his first C-rank mission, write his official mission report, explain to Kushina how Naruto had acquired his new toy, and make sure that his genin's mission reports were presentable. Yeah, on second thought, Naruto could explain his new sword to his parents himself. He had enough on his plate for now. Thank God Sakura was normal.

Speaking of Sakura, he had talked with her about killing Gato when they were staying at Tazuna's. She had tried to put up a strong front at first, but had quickly broken down. Obito let her cry herself out before giving her the "better them than you" talk that had been given when he got his first kill. It seemed to help when he emphasized on all the good that came from Gato's death. He told her that she would have a week to decide if she wanted to remain a ninja or retire early. Sakura had fallen silent at the offer and Obito assured her that she wouldn't be pressured to make a decision until the week was up. She had thanked him and returned to bed.

As they approached Konoha, Obito kept an eye out to catch the barrier in front of the gates open for them. Kotetsu wasn't above leaving it there to "test your reflexes." Everybody knew he did it when he got bored, but his excuse was solid and no one let you hear the end of it if you ran into the barrier. Thankfully, they passed through without an issue and Obito was able to check in. "Jonin Obito Uchiha and genin Team Seven returning from a mission."

Izumo didn't look up from his cards as he pulled out the log and flipped through it. He found the mission and briefly scanned it. "Back early, I see. Something go wrong?"

"We might have been a _tad_ overzealous with our protection," Obito admitted.

Izumo glanced over at Obito and then did a doubletake when he saw the weapons strapped to his team's backs. "Sage. What did you guys do, raid an armory?"

"Something like that."

"Well, welcome back. Good job on not dying, kids," Kotetsu said as he put down his cards while his partner cursed as he threw his own down. He pulled out the mission scroll Obito had given them before they left and stamped it completed. He tossed it to Obito and waved them through the gates. "How come we don't go on cool missions like that anymore?" He asked Izumo as Team Seven left.

"Because you thought swimming was a useless skill and wanted to get promoted faster," Izumo said as he shuffled the cards.

"So did you."

* * *

Minato sat at his desk and listened as Obito reported what had transpired during their mission. Minato let the words wash over him like the thousands of other mission reports he had heard in his tenure as the Hokage. You learned early on that most reports during peace time sounded the same, especially for something as low as a C-rank mission, the lowest rank that required his attention. Went out to do the job, did the job, got paid. It was when there was hesitation during part of a report, or a word like "complications" was used that he would start to pay attention to what was actually being said.

So, when Obito used "hostage situation" during a report on an escort and protection mission Minato started listening.

Once Obito's report was done, Minato remembered how much he hated having to keep up appearances. His new headache was killing him. The mission should have been classified as at least a B-rank mission. There was a difference between guarding a bridgebuilder from a few mercenaries and guarding a bridgebuilder from an army of mercenaries led by two ex-samurai. The only reason he wasn't charging Wave an arm and a leg for putting his men in danger for misleading information was because they had no real issues with it for the most part (he'd be checking Naruto later for bandages) and because they had already paid more than that. The papers that Obito had taken out of Gato's safe.

The papers were the deeds to all the businesses Gato had bought out to gain control over Wave Country along with everything he needed to run his business. Finances, employee lists, customers, dates, they had them all. Gato's Shipping Company was now controlled by Konoha. Minato needed the men in the village's financial division to go over them, but they should be able to ship everything out to the daimyo and have him control the business for them and maybe even annex Wave Country. Most of the money would go to the village of course, but if Fire Country expanded then they'd be able to pull in more of a market base for their services.

Minato dismissed the genin, but signaled for Obito to stay behind. Minato then signaled for his Anbu guards' dismissal. He wanted to talk with his student alone.

"Hokage-sama?" Obito asked once the guards were gone. Minato raised a brow at him and Obito relaxed. "What's up, Minato-sensei?"

"I wanted to hear your personal opinion on how Team Seven performed," Minato told him. "Some of the things in your report were a bit concerning."

"So, you weren't zoned out the whole time," Obito joked. The smile slid from his face as he got serious. "Naruto did fine, but he's still overestimating his abilities. Passing out on the docks could have gotten him killed and might have alerted everyone there to our presence if he had been discovered. He's still too reckless in a fight too. He got pretty cut up fighting the samurai and he should have known to fall back with me when I passed him, but he stood his ground instead."

"Ugh. He gets that from his mother," Minato groaned. "I'll have her talk to him about it."

"I'll go over it with the whole team as well. I'm having them take a break from missions to cool down and train for about a week."

"The same amount of time for Sakura to come to a final decision," Minato noted.

There wasn't getting anything past his sensei. "Yeah. I figured it would be better to see if we'll need to start pulling in free genin before working on a bunch of teamwork building exercises again."

"What do you think she'll do?" Minato asked. He was curious to learn what Obito thought about his son's teammate.

"I'm not sure. Her family history says that she'll be more inclined to quit, but she's really taken to being a ninja. Her only friends are ninja and she's already getting committed to the lifestyle. Ultimately, I want to say she'll stay." Obito also hoped that she'd stay. With more training under her belt, Sakura would end up turning into a fine kunoichi. "There is one concern I have though."

"The circumstances of her first kill," Minato correctly guessed.

"Yeah. She shot Gato from a distance and didn't even see him die. I told her what happened and she was stunned just from that. She hadn't even seen it confirmed for herself. I talked to her later and she ended up bursting into tears. If she's like that just at the idea of having killed someone, I'm not sure how well she'll take killing someone up close." Obito ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I'd like to believe that she'll be strong enough and I want her to be, I'm just not sure. What should I do, Sensei?"

Minato recognized the anxiety on Obito's face. It was one he knew well from his time as Obito's sensei. He was torn between wanting to introduce his student to the harsh life of a ninja without ruining them in the process. It was a special feeling of wanting to both help your student grow and wanting to wrap them in bubble wrap and keeping them safe. "There's no real answer, Obito. It will all depend on Sakura's will. I'm sure you'll find a way." Obito didn't seem too impressed by his advice, but it was all he had. Some things you just had to find a solution for yourself. "Now, about Sasuke."

Obito grimaced slightly, "Yeah. He needs help," he bluntly stated. "Sasuke torched an army of mercenaries by himself and found out why logia eaters are known as one-man armies. It was… traumatizing to say the least."

"Understandable," Minato said as he barely hid his own grimace. He remembered when he first discovered what a logia's true power was. Fortunately, he had eaten his fruit well into his shinobi career and had been in the middle of a war to boot. Having it be during your first C-rank mission was pretty rough.

"I'm planning on informing Chief Fugaku and Mikoto tonight and recommending that they send him in for consoling."

"No need. I'll talk to him."

"That's fine too, I guess—wait. What?!" Obito yelped in shock. Minato's words taking a moment to sink in. "You'll take care of his consoling?!"

"No, that'd be ridiculous." Obito sighed in relief. He must have misheard. "I'll just talk to him about his Devil Fruit. He should still see consoling."

Obito wore a conflicted expression while he mulled over Minato's offer. He was trying to find a way to say this delicately, "Are you sure, sir? I know that you don't like to talk about your first time." Minato was lauded as a hero throughout Konoha and the Fire Country for his actions in the Third Shinobi War, but he refused to talk about what had earned him the title of Hero and The Yellow Flash when asked. Obito had only heard the story once, and it had come from Kushina. He didn't bring it up again.

"I'm sure. I know what he's going through better than anyone else in the village. Besides," Minato flashed Obito a small grin, "I would be a horrible friend to Fugaku if I didn't." Plus, Inoichi was always getting on his case about talking about it. Maybe this would get him to shut up.

"Thank you, Sensei." Obito said.

"Anytime, Obito. It _is_ the Hokage's job to protect the next generation." He waved him away, "Now, get out of here. You need to prepare for the party later."

"Party?"

"We're celebrating Naruto and Sasuke's first successful C-rank mission. Talk to Rin, she's probably got everything taken care of already." Minato whistled for his guards and turned back to his paperwork.

Obito left the room and quickly headed for home. He was eager to see his wife again and catch up before they went to the party.

* * *

 **Namikaze Residence**

The party was a generally small affair, consisting only of Team Seven's families. It had been a bit awkward at first. Sakura's parents had felt out of place and kept calling Minato "Hokage-sama" before he was able to talk them down to just "Minato-san." It was a start.

The adults had mingled a bit before dinner was served and Sasuke introduced Sakura to Itachi and Naruto gave them all a tour of the house over Sasuke's protest that he and Itachi already knew where everything was. Sakura had started out just as awkwardly as her parents, but quickly relaxed after meeting everyone else's parents and had gone back to acting like herself.

After dinner, the adults shared a few drinks while the kids occupied themselves outside. Minato excused himself and went to see what they had gotten up to. They were in the middle of a game of ninja tag with Itachi as the referee when Minato found them. They stopped playing when they caught sight of him. "Hey, Dad. What's up?" Naruto asked.

"I just came to borrow Sasuke for a bit. Sorry, to interrupt your game," Minato replied.

The younger ninja shared curious looks and shrugged at each other. Sasuke walked over to Minato and he led him to the other side of the house, away from prying eyes. Minato sat down on a chair and motioned for Sasuke to take the one besides him. He spoke up after a moment, "It's scary considering how much power you have, isn't it?"

Sasuke didn't even try to hide his flinch. The silence dragged on a bit longer before he answered, "Yeah."

"You never really think about it. You're always told that logias are the strongest Devil Fruit users in the world, but that doesn't really cover it. Eating a logia fruit automatically makes you one of the strongest ninja in the world. Sure, there's thousands that are more skilled than you, but most of them can't get stabbed in the face and come out without a scratch." Minato turned to Sasuke and gave him a sad look. "It's a terrible burden, isn't it?"

The youngest Uchiha heir swallowed thickly. He stared down at his hands and noticed that they were shaking. "…How? How do you handle this much power? I killed _so many people!_ And it was easy. It was like picking up a kunai. I'm terrified. Terrified of what I can do, what I've always been able to do and never knew."

Minato was quiet again and Sasuke nervously watched him. He was desperate for an answer. It had been eating at him the entire trip back from Wave. This wasn't something someone his age should be dealing with. Was this why Itachi had picked a different fruit? Did he understand the burden of power better as a seven-year-old than Sasuke did at twelve?

"I ate the Pika-Pika no mi during the Third Shinobi War," Minato started to tell Sasuke his story, "My squad had been pinned down by an ambush while scouting out Iwa's borders. One of my men was dead, the other was mortally wounded, and the third had lost a leg. I was the only one fit for combat and they had reinforcements coming in. We held out for a while, but that changed when the reinforcements arrived. They weren't a second squad, it was an entire army. Iwa was planning on making a big push against our forces and it was going to work. We were out of options and pretty much guaranteed to die. In my bag was a Devil Fruit I had been carrying around for weeks. I hadn't been able to decide whether to eat it or not." He bitterly chuckled, "I figured "why the Hell not?" we were dead anyways. That was the worst thing I've tasted in my life. It didn't make me feel any different. I had no idea what power I had gotten. It was supposed to take your entire life to learn how to master a Devil Fruit and I had seconds. I just peaked out of cover and held my hands out while _willing_ something to happen."

"And it did."

"Later, my squad mate told me I shot a bunch of beams of light out of my hands and they created explosions that took out the whole army. That's how I got my moniker, not because I traveled around in a flash of yellow light, but because that was the last thing those soldiers saw before they died. A flash of yellow light."

Minato took a deep breath and composed himself. "With a single, desperate act, I turned the tide of the entire war and basically won it for Konoha. They called me a hero, but, for the first time in years, I felt like a mass murderer. There's no easy way around it and that still haunts me to this day. But when I think of all the people I saved, how many Konoha ninja were still alive because of what I did, I can live with it." Minato stared Sasuke in the eyes and did his best to convey every ounce of conviction he had to the boy, "That's the key, Sasuke. We're people of mass destruction, there's no way around it, but that's not all we are. We're human. We've got people we care about, people we'd do anything for. Always remember, you're not just killing people, you're saving the ones you care about. Your team is alive and unharmed because you killed those men, and in the end, that's all that really matters. Focus on who you save, not who you kill."

Sasuke was silent for several minutes. Then he stood up and bowed low to Minato. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"Hey, now. None of that. I'm not wearing the hat now. Stick with Minato-san at least," Minato said. Sasuke nodded and bowed again before turning to leave. Before he was out of earshot, Minato called out to him. "Sasuke, in terms of raw power, you're one of the strongest ninja in the village right now. It's a terrible burden to put on one so young, but it is a burden I believe you can handle."

The Uchiha gave Minato a rare smile and went back to the rejoin the game.

Minato watched him go with a sad smile before climbing to his feet. He could use a drink with some friends right about now.

* * *

 **A/N: Not much going on this chapter. I'm probably going to adapt a filler arc as a C-rank mission for next chapter then we'll have the Chunin Exams after that. Till then, later.**


End file.
